The changes that matter to advertisers, with the sources behind them and a practical next step. Pick a topic and catch up at your own pace.
Industry
Salesforce has launched Tableau Desktop Free Edition with no subscriptions, no data restrictions, and no limits on creativity. The analytics platform runs permanently on your machine.
Google Merchant Center
Google has updated its image recommendations to strongly recommend 1500x1500-pixel images for product feeds, up from previous guidance.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has made the Collection ad format available across Sponsored Brands ads. Advertisers can now create campaigns by selecting the ad format and collection type directly.
Meta Ads
Meta has updated message campaign reporting to differentiate conversations by channel. Reports now show which channel each conversation comes from, whereas previously only the total number was visible.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has launched the Prompts report within Sponsored Products reporting, allowing advertisers to see actual shopper prompts that trigger ads in Rufus-driven experiences. This represents a shift from keyword-based to prompt-based discovery.
Google Ads
Google introduced multi-party approval, a security feature that requires a second administrator's authorisation before high-risk account changes take effect. Actions that trigger approval requests include adding, removing, or changing user roles.
OpenAI
OpenAI is abandoning its Instant Checkout feature for ChatGPT shopping, reverting to redirecting users to retailer websites rather than in-app purchases. Staff realised that while users researched products in ChatGPT, they were not using it to actually buy.
Industry
Google Ads requires advertisers to confirm whether their campaigns contain European Union political ads by March 31, 2026. The setting can be confirmed in Campaign Settings under "EU political ads," in bulk from the Campaigns section, or set once at account level to apply across campaigns.
Meta Ads
A new placement, Marketing Messages on WhatsApp, has been spotted in Meta Ads Manager, allowing advertisers to send marketing messages to warm audiences. WhatsApp Business onboarding must be completed before using the placement.
Google Ads
Starting April 1, 2026, the Google Ads API will stop accepting new Customer Match adopters. Developers who haven't uploaded data to a Customer Match list from October 2025 to March 2026 will encounter a CUSTOMER_NOT_ALLOWLISTED_FOR_THIS_FEATURE error.
OpenAI
Criteo has announced that it is joining OpenAI's advertising pilot for ChatGPT, expanding its commerce media capabilities to conversational AI surfaces.
Anthropic
Anthropic has released a comprehensive curriculum of free courses covering Claude Code for CLI automation, MCP Mastery for building custom tools in Python, a complete API guide, AI Fluency frameworks for safe collaboration, and Claude 101 for core features.
Industry
OpenAI has released GPT-5.3 Instant, focused on smoother and more useful everyday conversations.
Google Ads
Google's Government Documents and Services policy updates on March 17, 2026. Advertisers targeting India with business identifiers don't need to qualify as government providers but must apply for a policy exclusion to prevent ad disapproval.
OpenAI
OpenAI released GPT-5.4, combining GPT-5.3-Codex's coding skills with improved reasoning, tool use, steerability, and computer capabilities. It scores 83% on GDPval for professional knowledge, includes built-in computer use for software operation, a 1M-token context window, and higher efficiency.
Industry
Google Cloud has published its AI ROI 2025 report, based on a survey of 3,466 senior leaders. Key findings: 52% of organisations using generative AI already deploy AI agents in production, 39% have launched more than 10 AI agents, 74% report ROI on at least one generative AI use case, and 88% of early adopters see positive ROI.
Meta Ads
Meta has decided to allow external AI developers to host their chatbots on WhatsApp through its official Business API for a period of one year. The move is seen as a strategic step to address EU antitrust concerns about market dominance.
Amazon Ads
Amazon's new Business Solutions Agreement, effective March 4, 2026, bans the use of Amazon data for training AI or machine learning models. This caused disruptions like login walls, hidden prices until added to cart, and removal of reviews from product pages.
Anthropic
Anthropic has published the AI Fluency Index, its first empirical measurement of how people collaborate with AI. The research tracked 11 behaviours across thousands of Claude.ai conversations, including how often people refine and iterate on work with Claude, question Claude's reasoning, and fact-check outputs.
OpenAI
OpenAI has published details on its advertising and privacy policies. Key points: contact syncing is optional for finding friends using OpenAI services, ads may appear for Free and Go plan users while Plus, Pro, Enterprise, Business, and Education plans remain ad-free, ads are clearly labelled and do not influence ChatGPT responses, advertisers never see chats or personal details and only receive aggregated data like clicks or views, and age prediction helps provide safer experiences for younger users.
Meta Ads
Meta is updating its attribution settings to split Click-Through attribution into two categories. Click-Through will now only include link clicks (any click taking users to a destination on or off the platform).
Meta Ads
Meta will begin adding Location Fees to cover Digital Service Taxes in certain countries starting April 2026. Current rates: Austria 5%, France 3%, Italy 3%, Spain 3%, Turkey 5%, United Kingdom 2%.
Anthropic
Anthropic has launched the Claude Marketplace, allowing enterprises with existing Anthropic spend commitments to apply budget toward Claude-powered solutions from partners including GitLab, Harvey, Lovable, Replit, Rogo, and Snowflake.
Industry
Miles Ryan at Smarter Ecommerce has published an 18-page report on AI Max for Search Campaigns, covering 10 topics including feature comparisons with legacy tech, automation overlap, why AI Max will officially replace DSA, real-world performance data, and known pitfalls. The report includes a new script, designed with Ivan Petrov, that filters and scores the AI Max search term and landing page report data, from best to worst performers.
Meta Ads
Bloomberg reports Meta is testing a shopping research feature in Meta AI for select US desktop users. They see a "Shopping research" button that shows product carousels with images, prices, brand info, merchant links, and recommendations, personalised by location and gender.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Bing has been spotted testing an "Asian owned" business tag on Shopping ads, similar to other business attribute labels.
Industry
Google Labs has launched Pomelli, a free AI marketing tool built in partnership with Google DeepMind. The tool extracts brand voice, colour palette, fonts, and imagery from a website URL to create a "Business DNA" profile.
YouTube
YouTube has added an interactive quiz option for videos, allowing creators to add quiz elements directly into their content.
Amazon Ads
Amazon has removed the obfuscated buyer email from seller data, completing its transition to fully anonymous buyer relationships. Buyer names and addresses were removed years ago; the obfuscated email was the last remaining identifier useful for calculating lifetime value.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft has updated the visual design of its Shopping ads with a refreshed layout. The update was spotted in the wild, though Microsoft has not officially announced the specific changes.
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