U of Digital

Making digital marketing a better industry through credible, digestible and applicable education.

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

📺 Fox Just Bought Roku

🔥 TOP STORY

Fox has officially closed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, bringing Roku, Tubi, and Fox One under one roof. With Roku’s massive streaming footprint and Fox’s growing advertising business, the combined company could become a serious force in connected TV. The real question is what happens when one company controls this much of the streaming experience.

📰 OTHER HEADLINES

🍿 The New York Times is reportedly looking to acquire Letterboxd for $330 million, adding another entertainment platform to its portfolio.

🎯 Amazon and Attain are helping brands reach shoppers who buy from competing retailers.

🤖 Brands are tracking how often ChatGPT mentions them, turning AI recommendations into a new marketing metric.

And lots more…

👇 Read this week’s U of Digital newsletter:
https://t.co/FYMGbFsYC7

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

✈️ A Delayed Flight Is No Time For A Credit Card Pitch

Travis Clinger (@tclinger) joins Shiv & Myles on the AI Edge Podcast to discuss the new opportunities and security concerns AI brings to marketing. He gives a clear example: if an airline chatbot knows your flight is delayed, it should hold off on pitching you a credit card. His advice is to test AI in ways that protect customer trust.

Full episode here
📺 YouTube: https://t.co/rhRj7rfcoo
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/xVhbESgcla
🎧 Spotify: https://t.co/wsftpzZLfJ

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🤖 Publicis has big plans for LiveRamp, even if nobody can quite explain what they are.

💰 TOP STORY

Publicis has officially closed its LiveRamp acquisition and is pitching a “plug-and-play AI growth engine” that lets brands build their own AI agents while maintaining control of their data. The ambition is clear, even if the press release isn’t.

🤖 NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES

• Smartly launches Intelligence Pro, bringing AI-powered media planning, forecasting, and measurement into one suite.

• Roku introduces AI-powered tools to optimize streaming TV campaigns for conversions like signups and app installs.

⚙️ USE CASE OF THE WEEK

Bonterra used two AI agents to automate customer review responses, cutting a 12-hour process to under 2 hours while keeping replies on-brand.

📰 OTHER HEADLINES

• AI stocks tumble after the midterms, with the S&P 500 falling 4.4% amid concerns about increased scrutiny of data center construction.

• OpenAI partners with Magnite and PubMatic to make ChatGPT ads easier to buy at scale.

• Adobe reports that AI-driven retail traffic now generates 83% more revenue per visit than other traffic sources.

+6 more…

👇 Get The Full AI Edge Here:
https://t.co/DMZbvqnFpL

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

To hit our monthly Simpsons Meme quota-

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

Blis’s 22,000 audience segments help marketers get more specific about who a campaign should reach 🎯

At last month’s AI Accelerator, Ryan Bricklemyer (@bricknhymr), Director, Product Management at Blis, explained how its omnichannel DSP helps marketers work with those segments. In this clip, he shows how AI can help navigate the options, while marketers use their expertise to shape the audience strategy.

Watch Ryan break down how Blis supports that process.

Learn more about Blis: https://t.co/8mKOXpXfEj
Explore the U of Digital AI Accelerator: https://t.co/SojbSfPGUA

[Ari Paparo @aripap]

I'll be there too, if you were wondering. Stacked agenda is shaping up, more to come. Definitely grab an early-bird ticket.

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🔐 AI Agent Consent Has No Clear Answer Yet

On the newest AI Edge episode, Travis Clinger joins Shiv & Myles to discuss a problem marketers and regulators have yet to solve: when an AI agent acts for a shopper, can it give consent on their behalf? Travis shares how LiveRamp’s AI forums led to the Agentic Audiences protocol, and why the rules for agents are still unsettled.

Full episode here:
📺 YouTube: https://t.co/rhRj7rfcoo
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/xVhbESgcla
🎧 Spotify: https://t.co/wsftpzZLfJ

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🛒 Amazon Is Betting You’ll Still “Amazon That"

Travis Clinger, Chief Connectivity & Ecosystem Officer at LiveRamp, joins Shiv & Myles on the AI Edge Podcast to break down Amazon’s bet on AI shopping. Walmart wants its catalog to be the storefront for every agent, while Amazon expects shoppers to keep coming back because “I’m gonna Amazon that” is already a habit.

Full AI Edge Episode Here:

📺 YouTube: https://t.co/rhRj7rfcoo

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/xVhbESgcla

🎧 Spotify: https://t.co/wsftpzZLfJ

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🚗 DoorDash is buying Instacart for $17B

TOP STORY

DoorDash and Instacart are joining forces to create a retail media powerhouse, combining grocery shopping, food delivery, customer data, and advertising into one massive operation. Together, they’d account for roughly 77% of US delivery app spending. The real opportunity is what they can do with all that purchase data. Get the rest inside.

OTHER HEADLINES

📺 Walmart is bringing its shopper data to CTV advertisers through Vibe, opening up more than 3,300 audience segments.

🤝 Affle is buying Perion for $420M, another sign that smaller ad tech companies are becoming acquisition targets.

💰 Q3 earnings reveal a growing divide between AI spenders and earners, with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft facing very different investor reactions.

And lots more…

👇 Full U of Digital Newsletter Here;
https://t.co/FYMGbFsYC7

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

In our latest @UofDigital AI Accelerator spotlight, we are taking a look at how Blis is putting AI to work to translate real-world behaviors into real-world results.

Last month, Ryan Brickleme(@bricknhymr), Director, Product Management at Blis joined us to showcase how the Blis omnichannel DSP combines T-Mobile app data, location intelligence, and purchase signals to help marketers unlock deeper audience insights, activate smarter campaigns, and measure real-world impact.

In the 1st clip of our series he takes us on a guided tour behind the technology to demonstrate how AI can transform a campaign brief into an actionable activation strategy that helps marketers move from insight to execution with greater speed and precision.

This is just the beginning of our work together so stay tuned here for more insight into how Blis is bringing AI-powered intelligence to advertising. 🚀

Learn more about Blis: https://t.co/8mKOXpXfEj
U of Digital AI Accelerator: https://t.co/SojbSfPGUA

Alex Boras Avery Rudman Ian Maio Sarah Shaikh Andrew Furman, MBA

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

⚡️New AI Edge Episode!

Shiv & @Myles_Younger sit down with Travis Clinger (@tclinger), who leads ecosystem partnerships and international business at @LiveRamp, to discuss how AI agents are changing shopping and advertising. After more than a decade at LiveRamp working across data onboarding, collaboration, and measurement, Travis has a close view of the shift underway: Walmart is opening its catalog to outside agents, while Amazon is steering shoppers toward its own tools. For marketers, that makes accurate product information and purchase tracking essential, so agents can surface their products and brands can see which agent-led journeys drive sales.

They get into:
• How Walmart is making its catalog searchable and shoppable through outside agents

• Why Amazon is steering shoppers toward its own tools and keeping product discovery within its retail media system

• Why brands need complete product details and a way to track sales driven by AI agents

And lots more...

Full AI Edge Episode Here:
📺 YouTube: https://t.co/d0SoFVI9MN
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/xVhbESgcla
🎧 Spotify: https://t.co/wsftpzZLfJ

[Hikari Senju @Hsenju]

@UofDigital @airgups23 @Myles_Younger Great roundup. If creative now does the targeting, make variation deliberate: change one real thing per variant (angle, setting, format, persona) so the system gets distinct signals, not 20 near-identical recolors. That's how we think about it at Omneky: https://t.co/AGy0UPu2QL

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🎯 AI Is Taking Over Ad Targeting AND Creative Control

💰 TOP STORY:

• Meta’s AI Makes Targeting Less Important - Meta’s upgraded ad ranking system uses creative elements like color, brand, and style to find audiences, making creative variation more important than ever.

+1 More…

🤖 NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES:

• Google Unveils Gemini 4 Carbon And Genie 4 - Google’s new models bring stronger AI reasoning and interactive world-building, potentially making branded games and experiences easier to create.

• Bluefish Moves Into Paid Media - Its new tool uses AI visibility data to recommend targeting, creative, and landing pages for paid campaigns.

+1 More…

🏕️ USE CASE OF THE WEEK:

Clorox is replacing long campaign cycles with smaller, faster AI-powered tests. Brands like Pine-Sol and Brita are using AI to produce more content, react to customer signals, and improve performance. Brita’s organic impressions grew 1,742% year over year.

Learn how Clorox made the shift, see the results, and get a practical exercise for using AI to shorten your own creative approval process.

📰 OTHER NOTABLE HEADLINES:

🔎 Google Adds AI-Generated Review Summaries To Search Ads - AI will pull positive reviews from across the web and summarize them directly in ads.

🚫 Anthropic Pledges To Keep Claude Ad-Free - As the company files for its IPO, its founders argue that advertising incentives could compromise AI’s usefulness.

💰 Nvidia Commits $3B To Meta’s Muse - The investment will help Meta make its AI models faster to train and run.

+4 More…

Get The Full AI Edge Here: https://t.co/HugJe1zCXX

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

I said what I said.

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🚨 WE START IN ONE HOUR!

Join Shiv and @ChadAReynolds, Founder & CEO of Vurvey Labs, to learn how to build and use synthetic audiences, including a live demo of Vurvey’s People Models!

📅 TODAY, October 29
⏰ Starts in one hour!
🎟️ FREE to attend

👉 REGISTER NOW: https://t.co/ynafYLeGl8

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

👥 90% See Synthetic Audience Potential and/or Want to Learn More. 😎

We asked you if synthetic audiences are worth it. The votes are in and tomorrow’s your chance to see them in action!

Join Shiv and Chad Reynolds, Founder & CEO of Vurvey Labs, for a FREE AI Edge Live webinar exploring how synthetic audiences can help you test campaigns, messaging, and product ideas before investing in traditional research.

Plus, get an exclusive live demo of Vurvey’s People Models!

📅 Thursday, October 29 (TOMORROW)

🔗 Register here: https://t.co/DjGF4ow1sH

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

@douglauretano @airgups23

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🏢 Stagwell Just Made Things Awkward For Rival Agencies

(meme déjà vu?)

Stagwell acquired Freestar, gaining access to ad inventory and audience data from 1,000+ publishers to fuel its AI ambitions. But Freestar’s publisher network is now owned by an agency that competes with the very companies buying its inventory. Rival holding companies now have a good reason to take their ad dollars elsewhere.

📰 OTHER HEADLINES:

🤖 Meta AI Is Changing Advertisers’ Ads: Meta’s AI is modifying ads without advertisers knowing, but advertisers are still responsible for whatever it creates.

📌 Pinterest Opens Up To Programmatic Buyers: Amazon, Google, and Yahoo gain access to Pinterest’s inventory, while The Trade Desk is noticeably absent.

🔒 Google’s Privacy Policy Gets Interesting: Gmail, Drive, and Photos data could help inform ad targeting when users opt into Google’s AI personalization features.

And lots more…

🔗 Read the full U of Digital newsletter: https://t.co/ONzcoJjNjy

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

🗣️ AI Ads Give Marketers a Full Conversation, Not a Search Query

Roger Dunn joins Shiv & Myles on the AI Edge Podcast to explain how AI conversations reveal what someone needs and give marketers a richer signal than search keywords.

Full episode here:
📺 YouTube: https://t.co/Wk7b0DHN6B
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/tLge0VJBox
🎧 Spotify: https://t.co/sOB1iVlpG4

[U of Digital @UofDigital]

👥 Learn to pressure-test your next campaign this Thursday!

Join Shiv and @ChadAReynolds for a live demo of @vurvey’s People Models and see how synthetic audiences can help you test ideas before launch.

📅 Thursday, October 29
⏰ 10am PT / 1pm ET
📍 Live on Zoom

GET YOUR SPOT: https://t.co/DjGF4ow1sH