Digiday Daily

August 12, 2026

Walmart’s advertising platform is giving brands more control on where they show up in searches, marking a significant change in how their ad budgets are spent.

TOP STORY

Retail Media Rewritten

Walmart finally lets advertisers exclude certain search terms

Walmart Connect said it would give advertisers the ability to exclude specific search terms for sponsored-products campaigns through “negative keywords.”

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW

What are leading brands and agencies actually doing with AI? Find out at AI Marketing Strategies in NYC on Sept. 24, where marketing leaders will share how they’re putting AI and agents to work today.
To adopt agentic AI at scale, organizations need to prioritize critical areas of agentic readiness. Publishers who have invested in identity infrastructure for privacy compliance are already ahead, as agent readiness and identity readiness are the same project. Partner insights from Optable.
The most valuable influencer in a given category probably has no followers, no media kit and no idea they’re influencing anyone. They’re the leader of a friend group. When they pay, their friends do too. Partner insights from PayPal Ads.

MEDIA & PLATFORMS

Member exclusive

Future of TV Briefing: In TV ad market’s swing to streaming, cheap inventory is in demand

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how TV and streaming companies’ advertising businesses fared in the second quarter of 2026.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM MOLOCO

The problem with last-touch for CTV

Measuring CTV on last-touch alone tells only part of the story. Across hundreds of advertisers, 30% of campaigns are significantly undervalued by last-touch models alone.

THE BUSINESS OF AI

Marketing on Platforms

Lifestyle brand Stanley 1913 adapts its marketing for the AI search era

The marketing it was doing worked well, but only for a human audience. The brand needed different approaches to ensure it was picked up by the AI platforms.

The Business of AI

Build or buy: Inside indie agency Mod Op's AI infrastructure

Mod Op is betting that building its own AI infrastructure can deliver more value than simply licensing off-the-shelf tools.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM CONTENTFUL

As AI becomes standard for scaling marketing, leaders are finding ways to adapt

More organizations are using AI to produce more with fewer resources — but the advantage comes from how creative and technical marketers activate AI, not just add it to their tech stack.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM 3C VENTURES

Marketer’s guide to evaluating agency platform claims featuring identical language

As agencies work to keep up with the competition, they bring AI-powered platforms to market that use language nearly identical to other offerings. Marketers must distinguish between narrative and measurable capability to see what claims ring true.

ICYMI