Each day, New Digital Age gathers the most interesting digital marketing industry news from around the web…
COMMERCE
Marketing Dive – Chris Kelly, 30th September 2026
What Kroger’s predictive scoring work means for e-commerce marketers
Kroger, in partnership with data firm Vidmob and trade association MMA Global, has found that it can forecast e-commerce purchase conversion by using predictive creative scoring before campaigns are launched and media is activated.
BUDGETS
The Media Leader – Charli West, 30th September, 2026
Reallocating search and social budget into audio could add £1m to profit, Radiocentre research finds
Brands could generate an additional £1m in full-term profit by shifting a portion of their search or social advertising budgets into audio, without increasing overall media spend, according to the latest research from Radiocentre.
BIG TECH
European Business Magazine – 1st October 2026
Big Tech’s Brussels Lobbying Power Is Leaving European Companies Fighting for Influence
Europe has spent years trying to build its own technology champions, strengthen digital sovereignty and reduce dependence on American platforms. Yet a new analysis of corporate lobbying in Brussels points to a less comfortable reality: when it comes to getting access to EU policymakers, America’s biggest technology companies have built a formidable advantage.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Advanced Television – 30th September 2026
Analysis: B2B social media ads among most-watched
Analysis by social media marketing company Billo shows that B2B ads are often more watched than B2C ones. In an analysis of more than 88K Meta video ads, B2B posted a 28.7 per cent hook rate (the share of viewers who kept watching past an ad’s opening seconds). The only category that showed better results was Toys & Games (28.8 per cent hook rate).
CREATOR
Digiday – Alyssa Mercante, 1st October 2026
The creator economy’s stance on AI is shifting — again
At the beginning of the year, not long after the release of OpenAI’s Sora 2 and its almost immediate backlash, the creator economy at large loudly denounced generative AI content in favor of authenticity. YouTube nuked AI slop accounts, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri released a lengthy memo about improving ranking for originality, and brands were looking for the messiness and creativity of real creators over everything.
AI
Digiday – Krystal Scanlon and Tim Peterson, 1st October 2026
OpenAI’s measurement gaps are keeping ChatGPT ads budgets at test level
Seven months after OpenAI started selling ads in ChatGPT, marketers are still asking how they’re supposed to measure them. It has become the sticking point in almost every conversation Digiday has had about the company’s progress as an ad seller. Part of the frustration comes from a sense that OpenAI hasn’t built much beyond the basics. Marketers’ own reluctance to trust the company with their data accounts for the rest.
Digiday – Michael Bürgi, 1st October 2026
As AI slop spreads, Pixability offers a way to root it out on YouTube
That natural disaster footage you saw on YouTube last week? There’s a good chance it was fake. The shark attack video? Not real, and made just to get you to look.
Performance Marketing World – Joseph Arthur, 30th September 2026 (also in Campaign)
Apple’s IOS 27 is blocking The Trade Desk from serving ads on Safari
The Trade Desk is currently unable to serve ads to Safari for Apple device owners who have downloaded Apple’s latest operating system update, iOS 27.
