Latest Digital / Social Media Marketing News & Insights

​Presented by Neal Schaffer​

In this week's newsletter:

• Did you know that when AI Overviews appear, organic clicks fall 39.8%?
• Fact: YouTube videos are 4.3x more likely to show up in an AI Overview than in organic results.
• A creator with a huge following doesn't automatically convert.

Hey Reader,

Greetings again from the World Cup — this time from the Japan vs. Brazil match in Houston on Monday:

That's me at halftime, with Japan still up 1-0. (For those who didn't follow it: like a lot of World Cup matches this year, Japan ended up losing that one 2-1. Such is fandom.)

Here's the thing, though: the experience got me thinking about why I keep flying out to watch these games in person. I think it comes down to something simple and deeply human. We all want a sense of belonging. Singing the same chants with strangers, hugging someone you've never met after Japan scores, even staying after the final whistle to pick up trash with those famous blue bags in the photo. That's belonging you can feel.

And once you see it, you see it everywhere in marketing. The Japan supporters have their chants and blue bags. Taylor Swift has Swifties trading friendship bracelets. Corona has its lime wedge. Glossier has fans posting their after-the-makeup glow. None of it is the product. All of it is the belonging.

So here's my question for you: where could you build that same feeling into your own business? A ritual, a shared symbol, an in-group your customers actually want to join. Pick one and try it this month. Belonging is one of the most underused advantages you have.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'll have something to announce before long: a way for those of you reading this to feel a little more connected. No trash pickup or headband required (you're welcome). Stay tuned.

Hit reply and let me know: what brand makes you feel like you belong? I'd love to hear.

Now, on to this week's updates!

Please note: Some links in this newsletter are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you.

This Week's News

Google AI Overviews Study Finds Lost Clicks Weren't Lower Quality - Google's official line is that AI Overviews only trim low-value "bounce clicks" you never wanted anyway. A new randomized field experiment quietly dismantles that. When AI Overviews appear, organic clicks fall 39.8%, and the clicks sites recover when Overviews are removed are the same quality as the ones that survive. Translation: the traffic you're losing isn't junk, it's real readers. The comfortable story about "better clicks" doesn't hold up once someone actually runs the test. Search Engine Journal​

How AI Impacts Email Personalization In 2026 - A "Hi, [First Name]" token used to feel personal. Now it barely registers, because readers have seen it so many times it signals the opposite of care. That's the uncomfortable reframe: AI has raised the floor on what personalization means, and first-name swaps now sit below it. The real move is using behavior and context to make each email feel one-to-one at scale, which AI finally makes practical for small teams. Pick one behavioral trigger this week and build a single automated email around it. Start there. Neil Patel​

LinkedIn Banner Size In 2026: Every Dimension Plus How To Design One That Works - I've spent fifteen years helping people get LinkedIn right and have written a few books about it, and I'll be honest: my own banner was a mess for years. So I fixed it and wrote down everything I learned. The most common reason a banner looks unprofessional is the wrong size, and the fix takes about thirty seconds once you know the number. My latest post has every current dimension, personal and company, plus how to design one that survives mobile cropping. Get it right and your profile finally looks like you meant it. Neal Schaffer​

How Brands Can Improve Chances Of Showing Up In AI Search Overviews - Here's the trap: the content that wins in AI Overviews often isn't the content that wins in organic search. A new analysis of 8,000+ citations found that 46% of AI Overview citations never appear in the organic results for the same query. Different surface, different winners. The tactical part is where it gets useful: YouTube videos are 4.3x more likely to show up in an AI Overview than in organic results. That single multiplier is reason enough to move video up your AI-search priority list. Marketing Dive​

Creator Economy Statistics: 20 Numbers That Actually Matter In 2026 - I wrote The Age of Influence and teach influencer marketing at UCLA Extension, so I read a lot of creator-economy stat roundups, and most are noise. I pulled the 20 numbers that actually matter for marketers in 2026 and explained why each one changes a decision. The through-line: money and engagement are shifting toward nano and micro creators, not the mega names, and passive revenue is now a real slice of creator income. The creator economy is professionalizing fast, and the brands treating it as a channel rather than a favor are the ones pulling ahead. Neal Schaffer​

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More Recommended Reads

AI Agents Are Failing To Read B2B Pricing, Study Warns - Your buyers are starting to send AI agents to check your pricing before they ever talk to sales. A Siteline study ran a Claude agent through 100 top B2B products and found the agents regularly can't read the page: JavaScript-rendered pricing tables and bot blocking triggered errors in about 30% of runs. When the agent gets stuck, it doesn't give up, it grabs numbers from third parties like G2, which are often stale or flat wrong. Leave your pricing unreadable to agents and you hand the story of your own prices to someone else. Search Engine Journal​

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10 Influencer Ad Elements That Actually Impact Conversion Rates - A creator with a huge following doesn't automatically convert. Neither does a polished video. What actually moves the number is getting the individual elements right: relevance over popularity, a native voice instead of a brand script, and a structure that runs hook, problem, demo, proof, and a clear CTA. The sharpest point is a measurement one: stop optimizing for views and start tracking CPA and ROAS at the creator level, because one creator can quietly drive most of your conversions. So which of your creators is actually carrying the campaign? Influencer Marketing Hub​

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How To Use Instagram Analytics To Grow Your Small Business - Most small businesses can find their Instagram numbers fine. Turning them into decisions is where the afternoon disappears. The useful shift is connecting engagement to revenue: put trackable UTM links on your DMs, Stories, and bio so you can see which one drove a booking, not just a like. One example traced a single Story link to 38 taps and nine bookings by Friday. And when you see a follower spike, reverse-engineer the post behind it. If you've been tracking reach and saves but still can't tie Instagram to sales, this closes that gap. Sprout Social​

How To Grow And Monetize A YouTube Channel (Even If You're Starting Late) - Plenty of professionals have talked themselves out of YouTube, convinced they started too late. This is the counterargument. The misconception is that the platform rewards a bubbly on-camera personality. It doesn't: what wins is understanding one viewer's specific problem and answering it clearly enough that they feel heard. The advice is refreshingly concrete, a decent mic is the one non-negotiable, window light handles the rest, and one creator filmed shed conversions in a parking lot to pull hundreds of thousands of views. The best time to start was last year. The second best is now. Social Media Examiner​

The Most Valuable AI Skill Takes 10 Minutes A Week - The old instinct, pick the best AI tool, learn it deeply, build everything around it, has quietly become a liability. Consider the pace: on the Humanity's Last Exam benchmark, the leading model went from answering a small fraction of questions correctly to past 50% in about 18 months. Loyalty to one tool can't keep up with that. The skill that compounds instead is a habit, ten minutes a week scanning for what's genuinely new, then five minutes testing it yourself. Tools expire. The instinct to notice and adapt doesn't. MarTech​

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