In this month’s digital news, privacy concerns reshape digital marketing, contextual marketing is emerging as a key strategy. Meta is going to help advertisers create and target campaigns using artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year.
Newly released data shows that Perplexity, Bing, and Gemini all send over 90% of their traffic referrals from desktop users. “AI slop” content is rapidly rising, distorting media metrics and draining ad budgets, prompting calls for stricter quality controls in programmatic advertising. Meanwhile, Rakuten is enhancing affiliate marketing with new transparency and creator tools, and Meta is pushing into physical retail to showcase its smart glasses and VR hardware.
Contextual digital marketing delivers great results, without cookies
As privacy concerns reshape digital marketing, contextual marketing is emerging as a key strategy. Rather than tracking users, it delivers ads based on the content being consumed. Respecting privacy while maintaining relevance. Advanced AI enables deeper content understanding and higher engagement achieving click through rates 2/3 times greater than traditional display ads. With 42.7% of users blocking ads and consumers prioritising privacy, contextual approaches foster authentic brand connections. Especially among younger audiences. Success depends on creative relevance, real-time optimisation, and integration with broader marketing strategies. In a privacy-first world, contextual marketing offers an effective. Future-ready path for meaningful engagement.
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Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year
Meta has now confirmed that they plan to roll out their fully AI managed advertising service by the end of next year. The new tools will enable brands to generate complete ads images, video, text and target audiences based on budget and geolocation. News of the rollout caused marketing firms’ shares to drop. Meta insists agencies will remain valuable for strategy and cross-platform execution, but AI will empower businesses, especially SMEs, to run effective ads without agency support, broadening Meta’s $160bn ad revenue base.
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Newly released data shows desktop AI search referrals dominate
New research by BrightEdge shows that the majority of referral traffic being to websites by AI search platforms is from desktop users. The statistics show that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Bing and Gemini all send more than 90% of search traffic from desktop usage and less than 10% from mobile. Google Search is the only AI tool to deliver the majority of its traffic via mobile devices (53%). This pattern suggests that AI search users may be performing more work-related or research-heavy tasks. As opposed to mobile users browsing more casually.
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What is AI slop and what is it doing to media metrics?
“AI slop” refers to low quality, AI generated content sites created rapidly to exploit ad revenue, mirroring older tactics like click farms and MFA (Made for Advertising) sites. Since the rise of generative AI, these sites have surged, Deepsee.io reports a 717% increase in a year. These sites skew media metrics and waste advertising budgets with fake engagement. Experts warn that programmatic advertising must prioritise quality over volume. While blocking helps, true prevention is unlikely. Switching to lists of legitimate websites rather than handing over complete freedom to all websites will help with this.
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Rakuten Advertising launches tools for greater affiliate transparency & creator growth
At Rakuten Optimism 2025, Rakuten Advertising unveiled new tools to address key affiliate marketing challenges. These include a Transparency API for real time insight into conversion journeys. Detect for fraud and compliance monitoring, and Storefronts to connect advertisers with creators for shoppable experiences. A new AI tool, Prompt, enables real time, custom performance reports to support agile decision making. Together, these innovations aim to enhance data transparency, programme safety, and the integration of affiliate and creator marketing, helping both advertisers and publishers adapt to evolving industry demands.
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Meta expands into retail with plans for own stores
Meta is planning to open its own physical retail stores to boost sales of its Ray-Ban smart glasses and Quest virtual reality headsets. Currently, these products are available online or through select retailers. By establishing dedicated stores, Meta aims to provide customers with hands-on experiences, allowing them to try out devices, customise options like prescription lenses, and assess features such as comfort and potential motion sickness.This move aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of smart glasses becoming a pivotal category in consumer electronics, positioning Meta alongside competitors like Apple and Google in the augmented and virtual reality market.
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