Demand Gen gets new reach tools, but your YouTube subscribers might not deliver the same

If Google had a favorite toy this week, it’d definitely be Demand Gen.

And it added two new playthings to the box:

• Commerce Media Suite, that connects Demand Gen campaigns to retailers’ first-party data, and puts your ads in front of high-intent shoppers across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail.
• VTC optimization, which opens up view-through conversions on YouTube as a campaign goal.

Both updates should improve customer acquisition, which is the number most clients are watching right now.

With Google saying Demand Gen boosts 18% higher share of conversions than the paid media average, it might be time to give the tools a chance.

Also, your subscriber count just got a little less meaningful: YouTube is now sending fewer push notifications to subscribers who haven’t engaged with your content in around a month.

Even if they opted into all alerts.

The bar for “active” is lower than you’d expect. Shorts views, comments, and posts all count, so most genuine fans likely clear it.

Channels that haven’t posted in a month are also exempt, and YouTube’s own testing found fewer people turned off notifications entirely because of it.

In short, subscriber count is no longer a reliable proxy for reach. Engagement is.

One update built for Gen Z, one to keep everyone else hooked

Meta’s trying on Snapchat’s clothes.

This looks familiar: Meta is launching Instants, a feature built around raw, disappearing photos and zero filters.

Instants lets the receiver view an image only once and the purpose is for the thing to feel spontaneous rather than polished.

Meta has a graveyard of Snapchat clones to its name. Only Instagram Stories survived.

But with Snap’s growth stalling and the company stretched thin ahead of its AR glasses launch, Meta is smelling an opportunity again.

Raw, ephemeral content keeps punching above its weight with younger audiences, precisely because it doesn’t look like an ad.

If Gen Z is your audience, Instants is worth watching for early placement opportunities.

Looking more inward, Meta’s doing some housekeeping: The updated Accounts Center now unifies all its platforms under one login.

You can also log into Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger with your fingerprint or face, and parents get a single dashboard to manage supervised accounts across Meta’s apps.

Why this matters: A more unified ecosystem means users stay logged in longer and move between apps without dropping off—which helps attribution.

As Meta’s ad tools gain visibility across a user’s full activity, cross-platform tracking finally starts behaving, which you’ve been waiting on since iOS 14 knocked everything sideways.

What to use in place of all those overused marketing phrases?

When writing marketing copy, it’s easy to drift into the same tired phrases you’ve heard time and time again.

You run low on inspiration, grab a phrase that feels safe, and suddenly your homepage is full of “cutting-edge,” “best-in-class,” and “world-class” claims. We’ve been there.

Now Oskar Duberg has put together a breakdown of the most overused marketing phrases—and more importantly, what to replace them with.

Here are a few offenders worth killing immediately:

• “Industry-leading” signals status, but where’s the evidence? Readers can’t evaluate the claim, so they ignore it. Try: “Track ROAS, CAC, and pipeline by channel in one dashboard.
• “Trusted by thousands” sounds impressive until you ask: thousands of who? Replace with something like: “Used by SaaS and ecommerce marketing teams worldwide.”
• “Seamless” promises ease without explaining where friction was removed. “Connects to Google Ads in three clicks” does the job better.
• “Scalable” raises a silent question nobody answers: scalable from what to what? “Works for teams from 5 to 500 marketers” is immediately more useful.
• “Results-driven” signals intent but describes no actual action. Show what the strategy optimizes for instead.
• “End-to-end” sounds comprehensive but defines no boundaries whatsoever. “From keyword research to reporting and optimization” tells a story.

Even CTAs fall into this trap. “Get started” hides what actually happens next. “Start your free 7-day trial” doesn’t.

The simplest test for any marketing phrase is specificity. If it could describe almost any company in your space, something is missing.

Strong copy answers real questions: Who is this for? What does it actually do? What changes after someone uses it?

Not every buzzword needs to go. But a page full of generalities forces your readers to work too hard. Abstract language weakens even the strongest ideas.

Clear writing gets attention and respect. When copy explains what something does and who it’s for, readers stay focused. And they are far more willing to act.

Start by replacing just a few phrases. The difference compounds quickly. Full list of overused terms and their fixes in the original post.

The ad haters are softening

It seems users are finally warming up to the paid efforts.

After years of ad-blockers and “skip intro” reflexes, the ice is thawing, especially among the cool kids:

It looks like we’re okay with ads now. Just like that.

The 18-34 demographic now trusts ads significantly more than they did in 2021.

They even trust ads more than the 55+ crowd, creating a massive generational divide in how commercial messages land.

Trust has ticked up across every age bracket, lifting the average to nearly 40%. Unlike the older generation, digital natives might view ads as part of the discovery ecosystem.

This is less about “better ads” and more about better platforms.

TikTok and Instagram have mastered native advertising where content and promotion blur together; ads feel like helpful suggestions instead of interruptions.

What can you do: If you’re targeting Gen Z or Millennials, don’t be afraid to put budget behind paid social as they are primed to listen. Just make sure your creative feels native to the feed.

Here’s the secret: knowing what’s happening matters less than knowing what to do about it.

Pro subscribers get both, weekly, for $349/year (covers your whole team, up to 10 people).