NMS Editorial Team

NMS Editorial Team

Pop art comic illustration of a Google Ads Target CPA bid strategy dial being adjusted by an AI hand, with phone, form, and newsletter icons funneling into a single auction box.

Google's Journey-Aware Bidding Beta Finally Lets Target CPA Look Past the Form-Fill

Google announced journey-aware bidding in beta on May 7, ahead of Google Marketing Live 2026 on May 20. Search campaigns optimizing to Target CPA will now learn from non-biddable conversion goals (phone calls, form submissions, newsletter signups, and other secondary signals) alongside the primary one advertisers selected. The catch: accounts

Pop-art halftone collage: UK, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Mexico flags with green checks beside an EU flag stamped with a red X, ChatGPT ad icon at center.

OpenAI Added the UK to ChatGPT Ads but Skipped the EU on Purpose

OpenAI announced on May 7, 2026 that it is expanding its ChatGPT ads pilot to the UK, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Mexico. Notably absent: every EU member state. The rollout adds five markets in weeks, none with a local third-party measurement partner signed. Self-serve buying remains US-only, which means

Isometric illustration of European Parliament chamber with calendar pages flipping to December 2027 and an AI compliance document marked HIGH-RISK

The EU AI Act's December 2027 Delay Skips Past Most Marketing Tools

The EU Council and Parliament reached a provisional deal on May 7, 2026 pushing the AI Act's high-risk compliance deadlines to December 2, 2027 for stand-alone systems and August 2, 2028 for AI embedded in regulated products. Most marketing AI never qualified as high-risk under Annex III, so

Why Adidas Made an Actor the Lead of Its World Cup Ad and Messi the Cameo

Adidas launched Backyard Legends on May 7, 2026, a five-minute World Cup hero film with actor Timothée Chalamet as the protagonist and Lionel Messi, Jude Bellingham, David Beckham, and Zinedine Zidane in supporting roles. Adidas can't out-roster Nike on athletes, so it changed the genre instead. The lesson,

GA4 Direct traffic bucket overflowing with stripped ChatGPT referrer headers, blueprint-style line graph showing organic decline against AI share growth.

AI Traffic ROI Has a Denominator Problem. The Referrer Strip Is the Other Half.

Duane Forrester argued this week that AI search ROI looks bad because measurement compares a stable AI share against a shrinking organic base. He's right, but only half right. The bigger issue: 60 to 70 percent of ChatGPT-referred traffic lands in GA4's Direct bucket because the

Pop-art illustration of a Google Ads AI Max term exclusion list moving from a campaign-level box into a larger account-level container, with a stopwatch losing billable hours.

Google's AI Max Exclusions Are Going Account-Wide and Repricing the Setup Hour

Google Ads is rolling out account-level exclusions for AI Max content and titles, surfacing through Search Engine Roundtable on May 7, 2026. The change moves term exclusions and messaging restrictions, currently capped at 25 terms and 40 restrictions per campaign, to inherit from the account. For agencies that built billable