On Silicon Valley podcast TBPN last Wednesday, Marc Andreessen of venture firm a16z made the case for chatbots and LLMs using ads to grow their businesses.
Mr. Andreessen said [01:49:20]:
“So the problem is… if you really wanna get to a billion, and then five billion people, you can’t do that with a paid offering. At any sort of reasonable price point, it’s just not possible. The global per capita GDP is just not high enough for that. People don’t have enough income for that, at least today.
And so if you want the Google search engine, the Facebook social app or a frontier AI model to be available to five billion people for free, you need to have a business model. You need to have an indirect business model and ads are the obvious one.
And so I do think if you take some principle stand against ads, I think you unfortunately are also taking a stand against broad access – it’s just the way the world works today.
The other salient question is the same question that companies like Google and Facebook have been dealing with for a long time: are ads purely destructive or negative to the user experience, or are they actually—done properly—either neutral… or does a well-targeted ad enhance the experience?
And so, can (…) you have them in such a way that they’re actually additive to the product experience?
And you can imagine, just like with searching and social networking, lots of examples of that. People will whine about it in lots of different ways. But I think that hasn’t been a bad outcome overall. And I think it’s entirely possible that that’s what happens with these models as well.”
Hear more on the Apple Podcasts app. (August 6)
h/t Eric Franchi on the Marketecture podcast (August 8)
LLMs & CHATBOTS
Google and ChatGPT
Even though they are competitive, Google and OpenAI continue to work together in areas such as OpenAI’s use of Google Cloud. Yesterday on LinkedIn, OpenAI was touting its Google Drive connector which allows for fast meeting prep using ChatGPT: “ChatGPT’s integration with Google Drive pulls together your account docs and turns them into a clear, easy-to-read summary in moments. ChatGPT can help you feel more informed, confident, and ready to deliver.” No Gemini required. See more on LinkedIn. (August 11)
From tipsheet: Is there a world where Google supplies ad tech, or even Google’s Performance Max, for OpenAI to implement somehow?
BRANDS
The markdown version of your website
Dan Hinckley, CEO at digital marketing agency Go Fish Digital, has advice for brands considering effective optimization of content for answer engines (i.e. chatbots): slim it down on the back end.
He wrote last week on LinkedIn:
“If you haven’t looked at a markdown version of your most important pages, you should. One quick option is to use Ahrefs page inspect tool to see what a markdown version of your website.
Odds are, that’s how ChatGPT and every other major AI system is seeing your site. If your product info, pricing, or stock status doesn’t show up clearly, you’re already at a disadvantage.
Bottom line: Make your key content and data easy for machines to find. Or get used to seeing your customers go elsewhere.”
Read more on LinkedIn. (August 7)
Related: “If I was the Director of Content Marketing at a $100M+ software startup*, here’s how’d i think about AI, GEO, and the future of content marketing…” – Read tips from Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing, Ahrefs on LinkedIn.
BRANDS
Keyword phrase: “SEO services”
On LinkedIn yesterday, a potential clue about marketers (and publishers) interest in getting help with their answer engine marketing…
Two SEO specialists (one is the original poster, the other a commenter) noted recent increases in Google Labs data showing searches for “SEO services.” The graph geo-targeted to Canada is climbing. The one in the U.S. spiked briefly, remains elevated, but is not climbing nearly as fast.
Read more on LinkedIn. (August 11)
From tipsheet: Bottom line, marketers (and publishers) are looking for help with answer engine optimization (AEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) or chatbot optimization – whatever you want to call it – with their websites.
BRANDS
Meta’s AI creative tips
Social Media Today pointed out some new tips – from Meta – that will help marketers who use Meta’s AI-enabled ad system Advantage+.
Here are the tips from Meta’s business solutions team:
Use all placements – We recommend remaining opted into all placements across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and Audience Network using Advantage+ placements. This will allow the Meta delivery system to allocate your budget across multiple placements based on where they’re likely to perform best.
Use diverse assets – Use Advantage+ creative in combination with Advantage+ placements to help ensure the right creative is in the right placement to increase the likelihood your ad will resonate with your audience. Consider using placement asset customization to tailor your creative for different placements.
Use placement controls where needed – If you have a hard constraint and need more control over where your ads appear, use account level placement controls to exclude specific placements or platforms. However, be aware that this may limit the effectiveness of Advantage+ placements.”
Read “Best practices for placements” on Meta’s business website.
From tipsheet: A common theme with creative in an AI-enabled ad environment is the more creative the better. It’s no different here with Meta’s tips.
AGENCIES
Synthetic data and IPG
Agency holding company IPG struck a multi-year deal with AI startup Aaru which—according to Adweek’s Trishla Ostwal on LinkedIn yesterday—“uses AI lookalike audiences to forecast how people might respond to ads.”
Jayna Kothary, IPG’s chief solutions officer and Aaru advisory board member, explained the deal’s genesis: “We do not have the luxury anymore of long-term surveys and waiting for six months. We need to be able to real-time inform our campaign design, our workflows, and our customer strategies.”
Ned Koh and CEO Cameron Fink are Aaru’s co-founders.
From tipsheet: Synthetic data solutions, right this way. Aaru’s website alone sold me.
AGENCIES
AI impact on compensation
“‘Frankly, if you believe you have the luxury of waiting for clients to ask about AI-driven compensation models, you might already be behind the curve,’ said Florian Adamski, global CEO of Omnicom Media Group.”
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Media Buying Briefing: AI’s impact on agency compensation is about to get bigger (August 11) – Digiday
From tipsheet: Outcomes, my fren. Just talk outcomes.
AGENCIES
RMNs meet agentic commerce
Jason Goldberg, who is Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe, wrote in an op-ed in Forbes that agentic shopping is going to have “massive implications” for global commerce and broke it down in three, key areas:
“Retail media networks could see less traffic if agents complete transactions without sending users to retailer sites.
Affiliate marketing and publisher commerce content could lose relevance if agents bypass their links entirely.
Attribution models will break when one agent consults multiple data sources before transacting.”
Mr. Goldberg sees a reordering of global commerce akin to the introduction of web search. He concluded, “The journey won’t start with a click. It’ll start with a conversation — and whichever agent you trust to handle it will own your shopping future.”
SELL-SIDE
AI slop grows
An article in The Guardian yesterday covered “AI slop” which it says is taking over Google’s YouTube.
The publication defined slop as “low-quality, mass-produced content that is surreal, uncanny or simply grotesque. But some contain a brief, rudimentary plot – in a sign of the growing sophistication of AI-generated content.”
A Google spokesperson responded that all content is subject to community guidelines and the company took further action once the Guardian pointed out some offending channels.
Google isn’t the only embroiled in the slop controversy as Instagram and TikTok were among those also named as hosting the potentially offensive slop.
The bottom line for walled gardens appears to be not allowing any “AI slop” to be monetized. Read more. (August 11)
TECH
When the account ‘breaks’
On X yesterday, Andrew Faris, a marketing expert on Meta’s AI-enabled ad tools, reprised a story (from his podcast) where a client account was “broken”—meaning it wasn’t spending effectively—and the eight steps his team took to fix it.
“Step 1: Eliminate technical issues first. I’m not technical, so this isn’t intuitive to me. But broken pixels or attribution errors will destroy your account faster than any strategy problem. At this point I’m committed to having a data partner I trust precisely for this reason.”
Read all eight on X. (August 11)
PROMPT
What are the executive roles in the advertising industry that will exist in 5 years but do not exist today?
Response from Claude.ai:
Here are emerging executive roles likely to become standard in the advertising industry over the next 5 years:
VP of Real-Time Personalization – Leading the shift from campaign-based advertising to continuous, AI-driven personalization at scale across all touchpoints.
Director of Synthetic Media – Overseeing AI-generated content including deepfakes, AI voices, virtual influencers, and synthetic video. Will manage both creative opportunities and ethical boundaries…
MORE
- Brands cut customer service reps for AI chatbots as tariff costs climb (August 4) – Modern Retail
- Martin Sorrell’s S4 says it’s in talks to combine with MSQ (August 11) – Ad Age (subscription)
- Google, Schmoogle: When to Ditch Web Search for Deep Research (August 10) – The Wall Street Journal