News from the open internet

The Latest

What the Tech is marketing efficiency ratio (MER)?

Discover what marketing efficiency ratio (MER) is, how it's different from ROAS, and why brands use it to measure full-funnel performance.

John McDermott

Across the internet

Preparing for the worst

Google is already preparing for a possible forced spinoff of its ad tech business, according to The Information, ahead of a remedies trial next month.

Cutting back

Dentsu is exploring a sale of its international business to focus on its Japanese operations, as AI threatens to shake up the agency model worldwide.

International grand slam

Netflix and Major League Baseball have struck a deal for the 2026 World Baseball Classic in Japan, bringing 47 live baseball games to the streamer for the first time.

Fan(ad)ics

Fanatics hired Jeremi Gorman, a former Netflix ad exec, to lead its new advertising division.

Caught in the act

YouTube admitted that it's been secretly running an "experiment" using AI to touch up select Shorts without users' knowledge.

Taken to the shop

Meta's Shops ads misled advertisers by overstating ROAS, alleges a whistleblower complaint filed in a U.K. court.

AI protocols

IAB Tech Lab has formed a new initiative designed to help publishers, brands and AI platforms build a sustainable ecosystem in the era of AI.

AI overload

Meta is restructuring its AI division and is considering downsizing the division overall amid internal tensions.

New AI deal

The Information reports how some news publishers are eyeing "usage-based" deals with AI companies versus licensing deals, to be paid based on how often their content appears in AI answers.

The future is MS NOW

MSNBC will change its name to MS NOW (short for My Source for News, Opinion and the World) after it splits from NBCUniversal.

Graph showing how U.S. sports viewers are watching sports.

The Readout

70% of U.S. sports viewers watch via streaming

Sports fans in the U.S. tend to watch games and matches on streaming platforms more often than not, and a small fraction watch exclusively via traditional broadcast or cable.