NMS Editorial Team

NMS Editorial Team

Blueprint chart of Google's March 2026 core update showing YouTube down 567 SISTRIX points, Reddit down 64, and Hilton up 4 on a technical grid background.

YouTube Lost 567 Points in Google's March Core Update. Reddit Lost 64.

Google's March 2026 core update finished rolling out on April 8 after 13 days, and an Amsive analysis of 2,076 domains found YouTube took the largest hit at -566.97 SISTRIX visibility points. Reddit fell 64.24, Instagram 48.13, X 45.93, TripAdvisor 44.78. The

Pop art illustration of a Google Ads dashboard with a glowing AI Brief preview pane, plain English instruction notes, and the Gemini sparkle icon

Google's AI Brief Lets You Preview AI Max Output Before It Ships

Google announced AI Brief on April 30, 2026: a Gemini-powered control inside AI Max for Search that takes natural-language instructions across messaging, matching, and audience guidelines. The shift that matters is the preview pane, which surfaces sample assets and search matches before any spend leaves the account. Until AI Brief,

Pop-art illustration of Meta and Google logos shaking hands with crossed fingers behind their backs in front of an IAB Tech Lab ECAPI 1.0 specification document and server racks

Meta and Google Helped Write ECAPI 1.0 Without Promising to Honor It

The IAB Tech Lab finalized ECAPI 1.0 on May 3, 2026, a server-to-server specification that defines 42 standard marketing events advertisers can send to any participating platform using one shared payload. Meta, Google, TikTok USA, Walmart, and Roku helped author it, but none have publicly committed to a date

Pop-art illustration of Google Ads PMax campaign settings with Search Partners and Display Network checkboxes, partner network toggled off, audit trail icon locked behind padlock

PMax Alpha Lets You Cut Partner Networks Without Showing What You'd Lose

Google launched an alpha test inside Performance Max that gives advertisers two independent checkboxes for the Search Partner Network and the Google Display Network, letting them exclude either, both, or neither at the campaign level. The feature was first surfaced by practitioners on LinkedIn in early May 2026, not by

Isometric illustration: USA Today masthead licensed to AI chatbots, dollar flow from AI to publisher, fading display ad and dropping programmatic CPM graph

USA Today Co. Made More From AI Licensing Than Display Ads in Q1

USA Today Co. reported $33.75 million in "other" digital revenue for Q1 2026, a bucket that includes AI licensing deals with Meta, Microsoft, and Perplexity. That figure grew 125.6% year over year and now sits ahead of the company's display ad revenue, which fell

Pop-art style illustration of a torn ad spend invoice with the words RAW SPEND and MARKUP separated by a thick black border, calendar marked FEB 2027 in the corner.

Meta Gave Advertisers 21 Months to Pull the Agency Markup Out of the Invoice

Meta updated Developer Policy 10.6.a on April 28, 2026 and gave third-party ad-buying platforms until February 3, 2027 to disclose raw Meta spend separate from their fees on every advertiser request. The 21-month window is the last quiet period before agency markups, currently running 30 to 90 percent

Pop-art collage of a Google Shopping bag stamped MANDATORY across UK and EU flag panels, with a September 30 calendar and a red disapproval stamp on a retail pickup counter sign

Google Made Pickup Cost Mandatory in 32 Markets to Feed AI Max

Google announced on April 28, 2026 that pickup_cost and minimum_order_value will become mandatory feed attributes in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and all 30 EEA countries on September 30, 2026, for any merchant whose in_store products are enabled for pickup. Products that fail to comply may be