On 21 October 2025, OpenAI introduced its newest curveball: ChatGPT Atlas, a fully fledged web browser built around ChatGPT itself. Instead of the traditional “search; click; hope for the best” flow, Atlas threads ChatGPT directly into your browsing experience – analysing, summarising and assisting in real time. (OpenAI’s launch covered by: Reuters, The Guardian, TechCrunch)

OpenAI explains that Atlas allows ChatGPT to “come with you anywhere across the web,” providing help within the page you’re already on. No copying, pasting or context-switching required. (OpenAI via TechCrunch)

And then there’s Agent Mode – currently in preview for paid users – which lets the AI take more active steps: performing research, comparing products, drafting documents, filling forms, even navigating certain workflows for you. (MacRumors)

A browser that doesn’t just display information, but helps you execute on it – that’s a noteworthy shift.

Naturally, the marketing world is asking the uncomfortable but necessary question.

What does the introduction of ChatGPT Atlas mean for advertisers?

At launch, Atlas contains no advertising inventory, no sponsored placements, and no commercial model beyond user subscriptions, with no confirmed rollout on the horizon. Most reporting suggests that OpenAI is currently prioritising product utility, user adoption, and trust over ad monetisation – at least for now. (Sources: Reuters, The Guardian)

We can, however, take some comfort in knowing that user attention isn’t flowing into a single AI ecosystem. Platforms like Gemini and Copilot still support advertising in various forms – or have signalled that monetisation is very much part of their long-term strategy. In other words, the landscape may be shifting, but it isn’t closing in on us. It’s simply becoming more distributed, and that’s something we can plan for.

But advertising is only one slice of the disruption story. If tools like Atlas become the start and end points for information-gathering, comparisons, decisions and day-to-day online behaviour, then the traditional “search engine;  website; purchase” journey will be outdated. That said, the traffic doesn’t vanish – it redistributes.

And so the bigger question becomes…

How do we reach audiences who no longer “search” in the old sense?

One emerging answer is the growing field of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) – crafting content that AI models can understand deeply, trust easily, and cite confidently. Instead of chasing keyword ladders or algorithm hacks, GEO focuses on authoritative structure, high-quality references, accessibility, and clarity. If AI becomes the gateway to the web, brands need to publish content that machines feel safe using as part of their response – and that humans still want to read.

Meanwhile, for pure reach, one thing remains steady: programmatic advertising still offers the broadest access to the open web, including Google Display Network, Safari, Firefox, Bing, and countless premium publishers. As user behaviour jumps across tools and platforms, programmatic becomes the connective tissue – ensuring that campaigns continue reaching people wherever their digital habits drift.

Atlas isn’t a threat to programmatic. If anything, it’s a reminder of why programmatic matters: because user journeys are increasingly less predictable.

If you’d like to explore how programmatic can support your brand in this shifting environment, you’re welcome to read more about our approach HERE.

The post ChatGPT Atlas: The next big disruption for advertisers? appeared first on Trafficbrand.

The digital event of the year played off in the beautiful city of Cape Town. Net Prophet was hosted in the impressive Artscape Theater on a rainy Wednesday morning. The rain couldn’t keep away the die-hard digital fans wanting to hear what the best in the industry had to say. It played host to some of the best digital minds in South Africa, and not to mention some international flavours such as Jody Ford (Vice President of Marketing at eBay) and infamous co-founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange. This certainly got me excited.

Right off the bat, we were impressed by the amount of people that attended the event. It seemed like the who’s who of the digital world came out in force. The VIP access gave us the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the speakers. I ended up exchanging some words with Jody Ford from eBay for a couple of minutes about his talk regarding eCommerce and where the market is going. As TrafficBrand deals with various eCommerce clients, this was especially useful for us.

The topic of the day was definitely mobile and how luck can play an important role in having success in any industry. It was clear that mobile is growing at a very high rate, on all digital platforms. Especially the development of apps seems like the way to go if you want to make a quick buck, but not so much for Aaron Marshall of Potluck. After years of struggling, testing, borrowing money and finally moving to Cape Town from the United States, he and his dedicated team developed a great app called Over. There is a misconception that apps are a quick and easy way to get noticed. In Aaron’s case, it took them 3 years to get his app out, and now it is doing great. So when you want to take on apps, make sure that is unique and well thought through, because it can easily get lost in the thousands of apps lying around in app stores.

Another interesting speaker was Simon Dingle. He took the conference from a different angle when he started speaking about human behavior and how this tied in with the digital culture as well as the way in which information through operating system have also influenced the way we search and look for information.

Speakers that got the crowd at the edge of their seats were definitely Rob Stokes from Quirk (which was recently sold for a whopping R68 million) and Julian Assange from WikiLeaks.

All in all, Net Prophet was the event to be at. We hope to catch you there next year. For more information about the event, please follow the link below.

http://www.netprophet.org.za/

The post Net Prophet – Digital Royalty appeared first on Trafficbrand.

The creators of DMC wanted to create an event that focused on the world of Digital Marketing. Their goal is to create an environment where we can get the digital marketing industry talking and learning from each other. A mixture of senior and junior professionals and representatives meeting regularly together to network and learn more about the every changing digital marketing sphere.

Past guest speakers have included Luke McKend (Country Director at Google South Africa) and Jacqui Boyd (Sales Director, South Africa at Vserv.mobi), Sean Riley (CEO at Ad:Dynamo), Athar Naser (Head of Juice Content), Jon Ratcliffe (Google Agency Lead South Africa), James McKay (MD at Quirk CPT) and Nicolle Harding (Vice-President of the Mobile Marketing Association South Africa).

The next event is on Thursday 15 May at the Grand Daddy Hotel in Cape Town. This month we have our co-creator Rian Carstens speaking on the differences in digital marketing in South Africa versus markets like Europe & the US. He will focus on what we can learn from these markets as well as how what works there doesn’t always mean it will work here.

Register here

Follow #DMCSA for event updates on the day.

The post Digital Marketing Collective #DMCSA appeared first on Trafficbrand.

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a platform to manage and implement tags to your website without the hassle of changing the web script. You simply identify your tag and then give it a rule when to fire (more on that in a later blog).  I am going to take you through the steps on how to kick-start your very first adventure into this platform.

Step 1 – Create an account

Once you have entered the Google Tag Manager website, you will have to sign up using your gmail account. Once you have signed in, it will take you through a series of steps to make it even more convenient for you as a user. This ensures you navigate through the site in the correct order. They have also added a hit and tips block on the side to help you when you run into difficulty.

Give your account a name. Through a single Google account, you can create and manage many different GTM (Google Tag Manager) client accounts. Just as you will find a list of your client accounts in Google Analytics and Google AdWords, you will find one in your GTM accounts. I like the consistency from Google, as this ensures familiarity throughout all their platforms.

Step 2 – Create a container

Always name the container after the website you want to place the tags in e.g. www.example.com. A container serves as a holding area where all your tags will be located for the specific website. Google has made a couple of tag templates available from the get go e.g. Universal Analysis, AdWords Conversion Tracking and Custom HTML tags to name a few. Because GTM is desktop and mobile app friendly, you have to choose one after naming your container. We are discussing the web version in this blog, but will have a blog up soon for creating a profile for mobile apps. Once you have selected the ‘Web Pages’ option, it will give you an option to add domains (optional) and also to select your time zone.

Step 2 ½ – Container Snippet

A container snippet is provided with each container that is created. It is vital to add this container snippet after the opening <body/> tag on every page of your site. The snippet will look something like this-

Hint – WordPress will need you to install a simple plugin. Further instructions on how to install the container snippet into your WorkPress, please follow this link – http://goo.gl/HA0v4R (Also a link to download the plugin)

Step 3 – Adding Tags 

Now that the GTM code snippet is implemented on all pages of your website the next step is to fill up that empty container. As there are so many different tags at your disposal, we will be covering the different tag types in my next blog. To add a new tag, you have to click on a big red button that says ‘New’ as seen below. This will give you a drop down box, where you will click on tag (other options are rule and Macro).

This was a basic instruction manual on how to navigate your way through the first part of becoming a tag master. If you would like to know more about Google Tag Manager, please see the video below. And if you would like to create your own profile, then follow this link and follow my easy steps – https://www.google.com/tagmanager/

Some other great posts:

Matthias Wobrock – Container Tags Can Save Time and Resources

Simo Ahava’s Blog – The Container Snippet: GTM Secrets Revealed

Justin Cutroni – Analytics Talk: Bye Bye JavaScript! Auto Event Tracking with Google Tag Manager

The post Google Tag Manager – It all starts here appeared first on Trafficbrand.

Facebook goes from having two levels: campaign and ads, to having three – campaigns, ad sets (read ad groups) and ads.

Migration

Campaigns will be automatically upgraded to the new structure, and the migration will not impact the delivery, spend or performance of your existing ads. Furthermore, you will have access to the historical data of your existing campaigns and ads.

Campaigns
Campaigns can be linked to the advertiser’s campaign objectives, e.g. brand awareness or driving traffic to your website. According to Facebook the redesign has been built to help advertisers optimise and measure their results for each of their objectives across campaigns ad sets and ads.
Each campaign can have multiple ad sets, of which each can have its own budget and ad schedule. In addition, the ad delivery system will be geared to delivering the best-performing ad within the ad set.

Ad Sets
Ad sets may contain multiple ads which can have different images, links, video or text. Creative, targeting and bidding will still be managed at the ad level.

The post Facebook Rolls out New Campaign Structure appeared first on Trafficbrand.

GSP’s appear in the promotions tab of your Gmail account. They look like an email but are still highlighted as an ad. Studies have shown that this format has a  higher CTR of 20% compared to the previous Gmail text ads. Users are more open to receiving ads in this format as they are already in“consumer mode”. Part of most people’s daily routine is checking mails. Now, you can reach users at this crucial time. There are approximately 2.6 million Gmail users in South Africa that can be targeted with GSP. GSP is a very useful format if you want to reach new and existing customers. The interface is available on all devices which means you can reach as many people as possible on all screens. The useful format allows you to embed lead forms, videos and a call to action. So that you can captivate your audience through a GSP.

When you click on the subject line of the GSP, it expands exactly like an email does. In this format you have the option to either:

• Save to inbox – the ad shall be saved to your inbox as a normal email would.
• Dismiss – users have the freedom of choice to stop seeing this ad.
• Forward – Send the mail onto a friend.  Free traffic!

There is also a teaser ad on the right side of the email to further push the brand .The ad only gets shown a maximum of 10 times per 30 day period. This means you get optimal exposure but don’t overdo it with your customers. The ads are very transparent and Google gives you the option to never see that ad again by simply just dismissing it or clicking the “x”.

You can target your specified audience based on gender, age and interests. This is all done via demographic and interest targeting. You can also target popular keywords in a user’s inbox, certain domains (e.g. if a user receives a daily Groupon newsletter –  Groupon competitors could target the Groupon domain to take advantage of this traffic) purchases, email lists and jobs. This specific targeting means that you can target exactly who and what you want.

There are a few other points to consider when using this new format.  GSP is done through a separate dashboard: www.google.com/ads/gsp. You need to link this dashboard to your AdWords account to track your conversions. Also GSP’s are invoiced separately to AdWords. Lastly creative needs to be done with HTML which presents a challenge if you don’t have a developer on your team. However, Google is willing to assist with this.

All in all a great addition to Google’s highly targeted advertising platforms.

The post Gmail Sponsored Promotions appeared first on Trafficbrand.

Google AdWords conversion tracking has been available for a few years, but very recently Facebook woke up and gave all Facebook advertisers access to conversion tracking for ‘off-Facebook’ ads. These are ads that direct people away from Facebook and onto a different web address (i.e. your landing page/website). We have tested Facebook Conversion Tracking and it works much the same as Google AdWords:

To generate a Conversion Pixel, simply navigate to the Facebook Ads Manager and select “Conversion Tracking” on the left hand side.

Then click “Create Conversion Pixel” in a green button on the far right, give it a name and select the conversion category.

A Java Script code will be generated after you create the conversion pixel, copy this code and place it on the confirmation page of your website (instructions for your developer), then join all the dots in your Facebook Ads Manager by linking your ads to the Conversion Pixel (edit your ad, tick the Conversion Tracking box and select the corresponding Conversion Pixel). Next you’re ready to check the tracking status of your Conversion Pixel. This can be done by visiting the conversion page where the code was placed, thereafter in your Facebook Ads Manager, the tracking status should be updated to, “Active” (people who have visited the conversion page within the last 24 hours). The Facebook Conversion Pixel will only report conversions that happened as a result from clicking on a Facebook ad.

Along with conversion tracking, Facebook offers Optimised CPM bidding for conversion driven campaigns, not only focusing on clicks. Optimised CPM bidding will dynamically adjust your bids in order to capture the highest-value impressions that are most likely to convert, in-line with your campaign goals and hence delivering the best possible ROI. It is said that Optimised CPM campaigns will deliver better returns than CPC or CPM campaigns, but standard CPC or CPM bidding is still available for the automated skeptics.

Our tests over the last four weeks have converted post click and at a reasonable cost. Conversions fall under “Actions” in your Facebook reports, so you can run an “Actions by Impression Time” report and filter down to ad level, you’ll find your Pixel name under the “Action Type” column (post impression/click). Conversion tracking allows you to determine which ad delivered the highest ROI, so you can make data driven decisions regarding campaign or website optimisation.

It can be argued that users who are on Facebook, want to stay on Facebook and that purchase intent is much lower on Facebook, so why send people to a website? I think it all depends on the objectives and strategy of the campaign. At least now there is an additional way to attribute return from ‘off-Facebook’ ads.

The post Conversion Tracking for Facebook Ads appeared first on Trafficbrand.

Adobe offers a variety of resources for search marketers in their online search centre, and among them a comprehensive white paper on portfolio-based bid management algorithms. Portfolio optimization stands in contrast to rule-based bid management. A rule-based keyword bid system would look at every single keyword mostly siloed from the rest of the campaign. For instance, you could sell DVDs online, and you could set the maximum amount you want to pay for a conversion to $20. Your system would take care of not stretching this limit for any of the keywords you are using. If the search term “harry potter dvd” would convert at around $21, your system would simply decrease the bid on this keyword or pause it. There is nothing wrong with that and this method would assure that “harry potter dvd” is converting at an acceptable cost. However, the portfolio approach says that this is thinking too short. Your overall performance might actually be better if you take advantage of the maximum amount of “harry potter” traffic, even if this means paying more for these conversions than you are willing to, and in turn making up for this with other keywords in your account that are converting more cheaply, and thus at the end of the day arriving at a higher ROI and conversion numbers than with a rule-based strategy. That means that a portfolio approach will look at all possible combinations of bids across all the keywords in your account, and then choose the best combination to maximize the overall outcome. It is clear that an extremely sophisticated and fast algorithm is needed to continuously adjust bids across a large account, as there are countless variables from position to CPC and CTR to be considered and all keywords need to be regarded as part of an ecosystem.

The portfolio approach can theoretically work very well – if not best – for campaigns with clearly defined goals and target margins and a predetermined schedule that is not constantly being changed or switched around. Note that there is also a cost involved whenever you connect to the Google AdWords API.

If you would like to read more about portfolio-based bid management, we highly recommend you give to Adobe white paper linked here a read.

The post Bid Management: Rule-Based vs. Portfolio appeared first on Trafficbrand.

The post Google Zeitgeist 2012 – How the World Searched appeared first on Trafficbrand.

• 20% of Google searches are new (not searched for before), every day.
• Social Media is the number 1 activity on the web, yet Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Google are not welcome in China.
• The Ford Explorer launch on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad.
• A new member joins LinkedIn every 2 seconds.
• 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, every minute.
• 97% of Pinterest fans are woman.
• Babies are being named, Facebook, Twitter, Hashtag  << that’s just nuts! or revolutionary?
• 53% of people on twitter recommend products in their tweets.

“The ROI of social media is that your business will exist in 5 years”. That statement sparking any opinions yet? If you have a Facebook page or YouTube channel and want to amplify your content, expand reach, grow subscribers, increase Views or Likes, give us a shout or learn more about PPC.

The post Social Media Revolution 4 – Infographic Video 2012 appeared first on Trafficbrand.