NMS Editorial Team

NMS Editorial Team

OpenAI Opened ChatGPT Ads to U.S. Without a Single Measurement Partner Signed

OpenAI opened its ChatGPT ads manager to U.S. advertisers in beta on May 5, 2026, dropped the $50,000 minimum spend, and added CPC bidding to the prior CPM-only model. Cost-per-action bidding and third-party measurement are both promised but unscheduled, and OpenAI has named zero measurement vendors so far.

Microsoft Made Human-Only Bing Traffic Official Before Anyone Asked Google

Microsoft confirmed on May 5, 2026 that Bing's freshly announced 1 billion monthly active users are humans, not AI agents. Principal engineering manager Krishna Madhavan replied on LinkedIn to SEO practitioner Mike King, "I can confirm no agents in these numbers - only humans." Google has

Dark navy data visualization with neon teal and red bidding curves crossing over a single account node, illustrating B2B intent data overlap across competitors

Intent Data Hit the Commodity Floor. Three Competitors Bought the Same List.

Colin Rocker Took Equity in Favikon Because 80% of Creator Deals Pay Under $300

Colin Rocker, a 420,000-follower career creator whose income runs 85 to 90 percent brand sponsorships (Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Ally Bank), took his first equity stake in May 2026 with creator-marketing platform Favikon. The trigger is structural. About 80 percent of US influencer deals close under $300, and total US

Pop-art illustration of a US map split into treatment and control regions, with three dashboards labeled GeoX, Meridian Studio, and Data Manager piping into a Google Cloud node.

Google Open-Sourced Meridian GeoX. The Holdout Now Lives in Google's Stack.

Google announced three measurement tools at Google Marketing Live on May 5, 2026: Meridian GeoX (open-source geographic incrementality), Meridian Studio (a Google Cloud MMM platform), and a Data Manager map view that visualizes data flow across BigQuery, HubSpot, Shopify, and Drive. GeoX testing begins later this year. Studio runs on

Isometric chart showing ChatGPT ad pricing splitting into a 5 CPM lane and a - CPC lane, with commercial and navigational query traffic diverging.

OpenAI Switched ChatGPT Ads to CPC Because the Average CTR Hid the Variance

OpenAI launched ChatGPT ads on February 9, 2026 at a $60 CPM with a $200,000 minimum spend. By late April the CPM had collapsed to roughly $25, and OpenAI quietly switched the platform to a $3 to $5 cost-per-click model with a $50,000 minimum. The CPC switch is

Ulta Credits AI for 95% of Sales. That Number's Been 95% Since 2023.

Ulta Beauty told Adweek on May 5 that AI personalization is supercharging the loyalty program that drives 95% of its sales. PYMNTS reported the same 95% loyalty share in 2023, two full years before Ulta rolled out the Virtual Beauty Advisor AI inside its mobile app. The number AI is