Digital Marketing News & Trends: April 23, 2025

Online Business News & Updates 🗞️

Here are some relevant news and updates in the online business and marketing space:

• Google Ads is improving search ads relevance by allowing advertisers who showed up in the Top Ads to also bid on placements on the bottom of the page.
  
  The user scrolling down the page might see an ad from the same advertiser they saw earlier, but it may not be the exact same creative.
  
  
• Google has decided to keep cookies despite its 5-year plan to phase out internet trackers.
  
  
• Google’s Demand Gen Campaigns can now be tailored to the channels best aligned with your strategy with Channel Controls. You can choose where your ads appear across Google’s interfaces, such as YouTube, Discover, and Gmail.
  
  
• Google lost the 2 year battle over antitrust issues and its monopoly control in the digital ad market.
  
  Two years ago, the US and several states sued the tech giant for violating antitrust laws and monopolising the ad tech market.
  
  A few days ago, a federal judge found Google guilty, but according to Google’s VP of regulatory affairs, the company will appeal this decision.
  
  
• Uber is facing accusations from the FTC for signing people up and charging them for an Uber One subscription without consent, making it difficult for users to cancel.
  
  
• Perplexity released a statement regarding the recent “monopoly” case against Google, emphasizing that the tech giant should give people a choice rather than… well, not.
  
  The statement also mentions that Perplexity’s goal is completely different than competing with Google. While Google can continue “monopolizing” the industry, Perplexity strives to give people the freedom of choice when it comes to the AI that is accurate, trustworthy, and intelligent.
  
  
• Free Google Goods: Gemini Advanced, Notebook LM Plus, 2 TB of storage, and Whisk are all available for free for college students in the U.S.
  
  
• Website Redesign Trend: How often should you redesign your website? According to some insights provided by Digital Silk, there is a major trend across the digital landscape: brands are now redesigning their websites every 2 to 3 years, instead of the traditional 5 to 7 years.
  
  This is due to the new fast-paced online environment, new user expectations, and the need for everything to be optimized for mobile.
  
  

AI Developments 🤖

Do you leverage AI in your business? Here are the latest news and trends in the artificial intelligence realm:

• Open AI is considering acquiring Windsurf (an AI coding tool) for $3 billion. If this deal does take place, it would be OpenAI’s biggest acquisition.
  
  
• Meta is testing AI technology to protect teens. The AI searches for kids and teens who are lying about their age and enrolls them into restricted Teen Accounts.
  
  
• Grok introduced Grok Vision, which can see the world around you, translate it, and answer questions about it in real time. Grok Vision is available on iOS but not on Android yet.  
  
  
• xAI: Is Elon Musk getting ready for a big financial move? According to CNBC’s David Faber, Musk is looking to put “proper value” on his xAI startup. Usually, that happens when a company is getting ready for something like a capital raise or an investment round.
  
  
• News AI Animation Trends: Disaster and a Cat Savior and A Day In The Life Of An Orange Cat (that either takes care of his friends or kills them).
  
  
• Microsoft introduced the Copilot Merchant Program. This program allows retailers to integrate product catalogs with the Microsoft AI-powered Copilot platform, giving shoppers a personal AI shopping assistant.
  
  
• ChatGPT: While new AI releases are considered state-of-the-art and impressive, they’re not perfect. The new ChatGPT models (o3 and o4-mini) have been proven to hallucinate more than the older versions. Transluce investigated their accuracy.
  
  
• ChatGPT Trend: ChatGPT is being used to determine the location shown in pictures. Some people love this geo-guessing feature, and some say it is a potential privacy issue.
  
  
• ElevenLabs added a Professional Voice Cloning feature. You can now programmatically create voices, manage audio samples, initiate training, and more.
  
  
• ElevenLabs also added options to include or exclude timestamps and speaker IDs when exporting Speech to Text results via the API. 
  
  

The Latest In E-Commerce 💲

Are you in the Ecom business? Here is what’s happening in the e-commerce world today:

• Shopify has added new editing features to Shopify Email. With section padding controls and a redesigned footer section, Shopify Email now offers more design flexibility.
  
  
• Amazon launched Amazon DSP bid adjustments that support both simple adjustments and complex bidding algorithms. This means advertisers can maintain tailored bidding within a single line item.
  
  DSP bid adjustments offer a faster, simpler setup, smarter decisions, and more control.
  
  
• Etsy has introduced some new and improved features for store owners. There are new photo tools in the Etsy Seller app, improvements to the Shop Manager Experience, the orders page and messages now load faster, and better support and stronger tools, and more.
  
  
• Etsy’s CEO, Josh Silverman, mentioned that due to the recently imposed tariffs, shoppers are leaning towards shopping locally, or at least within the U.S. 
  
  
• Dropshipping businesses (small and big) are suffering as it is becoming a lot harder to sell to the U.S. market due to the tariffs and the elimination of the de minimis exemption.
  
  
• Saks Global will permanently shut down one of its fulfillment centers in Tennessee on June 5th, again due to the tariffs, resulting in the layoff of 450 employees.
  
  

Social Media Features and Trends 👨🏻‍💻

Here are some new social media updates, features, and trends you should be aware of:

• Bluesky introduced Blue Check Verification. It has begun to verify notable accounts and is displaying a familiar blue check next to the verified ones. 
  
  
• Instagram launched a new Blend feature for Reels. The feature allows you to create what’s called a Blend feed of recommended Reels that you can share with your peers or in a group chat.
  
  
• Threads introduced a new feature for users to add interests to profiles. You can add up to 10 interest topics. The feature is supposed to enhance content recommendations and help you meet like-minded individuals.
  
  
• Threads expanded the opportunity to run ads on the platform to all eligible advertisers. 
  
  
• WhatsApp introduced an Advanced Chat Privacy setting. It is available in both chats and groups and helps prevent others from taking content outside of WhatsApp. 
  
  
• Meta is hosting a webinar on Reels Tips and Tricks on Thursday, Apr 24th, @15:00 CST. During the webinar, you will discover the full potential of Reels to drive impactful business results.
  
  
• Meta’s antitrust trial update: During the trial last Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg stated that TikTok was and still is a major competitive threat to Meta.
  
  But some say that Meta deliberately allowed TikTok to grow back when it was just getting popular… circa 2018 – 2019.
  
  
• Snapchat got sued by Florida over getting minors addicted to the platform.
  
  According to James Uthmeier (Florida’s Attorney General), “Snap is deceiving Florida parents about the dangers children face on the app, from behavioral addictive features to allowing sexual predators and drug dealers access, and we cannot allow this deception to continue.”
  
  
• TikTok is testing a new feature called Footnotes. It is designed to give users more context about TikTok content.
  
  

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