Each day, New Digital Age gathers the most interesting digital marketing industry news from around the web…
STREAMING
Performance Marketing World – Robin Langford, 13th August 2026
Over-55s are driving streaming TV growth – report
New Ofcom data underlines the challenge for marketers trying to reach audiences across an increasingly fragmented video ecosystem, with age playing a major role in where consumers spend their screen time.
YOUTUBE
Performance Marketing World – Bethany Lee, 13th August 2026 (also in Affiliate Leaders)
YouTube splits affiliate traffic from organic in major measurement revamp
Google unifies ecosystem reporting with Merchant Center updates, warning advertisers to prepare for significant shifts in reported traffic and impressions.
ECONOMY
Sky News – Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, 13th August 2026
Q2 GDP slows but economy resilient despite Iran war – ONS data
Computer programming and advertising during and in the run-up to the World Cup helped economic resilience in the face of higher fuel costs from the Iran war.
AI
Digiday – Sara Guaglione, 14th August 2026
European publishers are getting hit harder by AI bot scraping, report finds
European publishers are getting hit harder than North American sites by AI bot scraping – and no one really knows why.
Bloomberg – Bloomberg Reporters, 14th August 2026
Z.ai to rival Anthropic, Open AI in coding with new model
Z.AI Co. is set to upgrade its flagship AI model, joining a series of Chinese open-weight offerings seeking to outcompete Anthropic PBC and OpenAI.
AGENCIES
AdAge – Ewan Larkin, 13th August 2026
Waymo seeks agency for first Super Bowl ad, hires WPP for media
Waymo is gearing up for an aggressive marketing push, hiring WPP for media and conducting a creative review for a Super Bowl debut, Ad Age has learned.
BIG TECH
PPC LAND – Luis Rijo, 14th August 2026
Google Ads drops language targeting in September, nine months past deadline
Google today said the campaign-level language targeting setting will disappear from Search and Performance Max campaigns starting in September 2026, closing out a removal the company first scheduled for the end of 2025. A second, less publicised change ships alongside it: the system will begin favouring the ad and landing page whose language matches the search term itself.
