The New Rules of Marketing: AI, Cookies, and The Death of the Click
Weekly briefing for AI-first marketers. News, tactics, and tools that move the whole funnel.
Rohit Maheswaran
September 10, 2025
Hey Full Funnel Fam, 👋👋
This week brings a wave of disruption in marketing. Google’s AI-driven summaries are redefining search itself, putting pressure on how we’ve always thought about the marketing funnel. At the same time, B2B marketers are navigating a cookieless, privacy-first web, while Snap is rolling out fresh ad formats designed to stretch app marketers’ reach and trim acquisition costs.
The theme? A moment to revisit the fundamentals, challenge old assumptions, and embrace the next chapter of digital marketing. Ready to dive in? ⚡
On the Menu 📑
🎨 Canva Unleashes Fantasy Shorts: How the design platform is putting imagination to work with AI.
🚀 Snap's New App Ad Formats: Driving lower CPAs and broader reach for marketers.
🍪 The End of Cookies: How B2B marketers are adapting to a privacy-first web in 2025. ❌
🔪 Google Killed the Funnel: A reality check on AI summaries, zero-clicks, and the collapse of content marketing.
🎙️ Podcast: How direct customer feedback and AI are unmasking the true drivers of e-commerce growth, with ft. Mat Bahr.
🚨 Tool Spotlight: HubSpot's Breeze AI is a centralized AI layer within HubSpot's ecosystem.
🛠️ Weekly AI tools that will save you hours every week.
Canva Unleashes Fantasy Shorts to Put Imagination to Work 🎨
Canva is expanding its AI capabilities with new features that allow users to create and edit fantasy-themed content. The platform's new tools include an AI-powered image generator that creates fantasy characters from text descriptions, and a "Magic Edit" feature that lets users add, replace, or edit elements within an image with a simple text prompt. Users can stylize their AI-generated images with effects and filters, and even create videos with AI-generated characters. This move is part of Canva's broader push to integrate AI into its design tools, empowering users to bring their creative visions to life more efficiently.
Why it matters:
Democratizing Creativity: Canva's AI tools are making sophisticated design and content creation accessible to a wider audience, regardless of their technical skills.
Content Velocity: Marketers and creators can quickly generate a large volume of unique and visually compelling content for social media campaigns, ads, and other assets.
Visual Storytelling: The ability to generate custom visuals on the fly allows for more personalized and imaginative storytelling, helping brands stand out in a crowded digital space.
Hook tip: Use Canva's new AI video generator to transform a text script into a short fantasy-themed video for your brand's social media.
Takeaway: While AI streamlines the creation process, the most impactful content will still be a collaboration between AI's efficiency and genuine human creativity.
Snap's New App Ad Formats Aim to Lower CPAs, Drive Reach 📊
Snap has introduced the "App Power Pack," a suite of new products designed to help app marketers improve their return on investment. The new offering includes updated ad formats, bid strategies, and targeting capabilities. A key feature is the introduction of "Playable App Ads," which are currently in alpha testing and let users try a mini version of a game without leaving the Snapchat app. Additionally, Sponsored Snaps, a new ad format that places ads in users' chat inboxes, is now available to app advertisers. These new formats are already showing promising results, with the App Power Pack driving at least a 25% increase in app installs. Sponsored Snaps have also shown an 18% lift in unique converters.
Why it matters:
Lowering Acquisition Costs: The new ad formats and bidding strategies are designed to help advertisers lower their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) for campaigns on the platform.
Deeper Engagement: Playable App Ads allow for a new level of user engagement, letting potential customers interact with the product before committing to a download.
Expanding Reach: The inclusion of Sponsored Snaps in the auction helps app businesses reach users directly within the Chat feature, expanding their potential audience.
Hook Tip: When running a new campaign on Snap, consider using the "App End Cards" feature, which automatically pulls images from the App Store to drive engagement and downloads.
Takeaway: Snap's new ad formats are designed to lower acquisition costs and provide deeper user engagement through interactive experiences, making it a valuable platform for app marketers seeking to scale their campaigns.
With the decline of third-party cookies, B2B marketers are rethinking their strategies to comply with new privacy regulations, such as GDPR. This shift means moving away from broad, cross-site tracking and focusing on new approaches. First-party and zero-party data are becoming the foundation of successful marketing campaigns, as they offer direct, clean insights without relying on third parties. Marketers are gathering this data through direct customer relationships, surveys, and forms to create hyper-personalized experiences.
Effective Marketing Tactics:
Trust is the New Currency: In a privacy-focused world, building trust with prospects is paramount. Permission-based, personalized campaigns will be more effective than interruptive, cookie-based targeting.
Rise of Contextual Advertising: Instead of targeting individuals, marketers are now using contextual advertising to place ads based on the content a user is engaging with, ensuring relevance without compromising privacy.
The Power of First-Party Data: First-party data strategies offer numerous advantages, including higher accuracy, better compliance, and enhanced personalization capabilities. This data allows for real-time tracking of buyer behavior and a better return on marketing investment.
Try this: Encourage newsletter sign-ups by offering exclusive, valuable content like a whitepaper or webinar. Be transparent about how you'll use their data and provide a clear opt-out option to build trust and gather first-party data.
Takeaway: The end of cookies is not a death knell for B2B marketing; it's an opportunity to build more authentic, data-driven relationships with customers based on trust and value.
Google Killed the Funnel: AI Summaries, Zero-Clicks, and the Collapse of Content Marketing 🔪
Google's introduction of AI Overviews, which summarize answers directly on the search results page, is having a profound impact on content marketing. This trend, known as "zero-click search," means that users are getting their answers without ever clicking through to a website, leading to a significant drop in organic traffic for many brands. Reports indicate that when an AI summary appears, users click on traditional search results only 8% of the time, compared to 15% when no summary is present. This shift is forcing content marketers to rethink their entire strategy, as the traditional marketing funnel from Awareness to Conversion is collapsing.
Why it matters:
The End of the Click: The goal is no longer to win the click but to win the "mention" within an AI-generated response.
New Optimization Strategies: Marketers must now focus on "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO) and "Generative Engine Optimization" (GEO). This involves creating structured, authoritative content with clear citations that AI agents can easily reference.
Content as an Asset: Brands should create proprietary, interactive content like calculators or polls that AI can summarize but not fully replicate, turning their pages into trusted destinations.
Hook tip: Focus on "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO) and "Generative Engine Optimization" (GEO) by creating content that is structured, authoritative, and designed to appear in snippet-like formats that AI can easily reference.
Takeaway: The future of content is not just about attracting clicks, but about providing the most authoritative, trustworthy, and structured information that both humans and AI can value.
🎙️ Listen to our latest podcast episode ft. Mat Bahr
Listen to Mat Bahr (Founder & CEO of Fairing) as he joins Rohit at Full Funnel to share how direct customer feedback and AI are unmasking the true drivers of e-commerce growth. Matt brilliantly calls pixel-only tracking "the Emperor's New Clothes" of attribution, and he's got the data to prove it!
Check out the full episode below 👇👇
🧰 Framework of the Week: The B2B Account Orchestration Model
The B2B Account Orchestration Model is a framework that uses a shared intelligence layer to align marketing and sales efforts for more effective lead generation and customer acquisition. It moves beyond static personas and manual lead scoring by leveraging AI to prioritize accounts and trigger context-aware engagement.
Dynamic ICP Creation: Instead of a static Ideal Customer Profile, use AI to create a dynamic ICP that evolves in real-time based on technographic data and intent signals.
AI-Powered Account Selection: Automate lead scoring and prioritization across a wide range of variables, including engagement frequency, budget indicators, and social media signals. This helps your team focus on accounts that are most likely to convert.
Signal-Based Engagement: Orchestrate multi-stage, multi-channel engagement based on real-time buyer behavior. For example, if an account is researching competitor comparisons, trigger an automated campaign that sends them a comparison guide.
Shared Intelligence Layer: Create a single source of truth for both sales and marketing. This shared visibility on unified account scores and content engagement maps aligns messaging, improves follow-up timing, and reduces friction between teams.
Test, Learn, and Automate: Use AI to test which signals lead to the most qualified meetings and identify where leads are dropping off. Use these insights to refine campaigns before you automate for scale.
Try this: Use an intent-tracking tool to monitor key accounts. When a target account shows a strong signal (like visiting your pricing page), have a task automatically created for a salesperson.
🚨 AI Tool Spotlight: HubSpot's Breeze AI
HubSpot's Breeze AI is a suite of AI tools integrated across its marketing, sales, and service platforms, designed to automate and enhance various business operations.
What it is: Breeze AI is a centralized AI layer within HubSpot's ecosystem. It includes AI-powered tools for sales prospecting, customer service, and content creation, all aimed at boosting productivity and providing deeper insights. For example, the Prospecting Agent researches targets and crafts personalized outreach, while the Customer Agent resolves routine support inquiries automatically.
Why it's hot: HubSpot is making AI a seamless part of its all-in-one platform. Breeze AI helps businesses handle a significant portion of repetitive work from lead research to customer service - freeing up teams to focus on more strategic tasks. It also provides AI-powered analytics and insights, helping marketers and sales teams make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Try this: Use HubSpot's built-in AI tools to automate a small piece of your workflow. For instance, use the Content Agent to generate a draft of a landing page based on your top-performing blog post, or use the AI-powered email tool to personalize an email campaign for a specific audience segment.
🛠️ Featured AI Toolkit for the week
What it does:
Ocoya is an AI-powered social media automation platform that helps you create, schedule, and publish posts across multiple platforms in minutes. It combines content generation (captions, hashtags, images, and copy) with automation tools, allowing businesses and creators to streamline their social media presence without juggling multiple apps.
Fast payoff:
Pick a platform, generate AI-written content with ready-to-use visuals and captions, and schedule everything in one click. Within minutes, you’ll have polished posts lined up for days or weeks ahead, saving hours of manual effort and boosting engagement consistently.
What it does:
Localo is an AI-driven local SEO tool designed to improve visibility on Google Maps and local search results. It audits your Google Business Profile, identifies optimization opportunities, and tracks competitor performance. Businesses can manage reviews, keywords, and rankings in one dashboard to attract more local customers.
Fast payoff:
Connect your business profile, run an instant audit, and apply the recommended fixes. In just a few days, you’ll notice improved local rankings, better review management, and more walk-in or call-in customers finding you directly from Google Maps.
What it does:
Claude is an advanced AI assistant developed by Anthropic, built for natural, conversational interactions and productivity. It can analyze long documents, generate ideas, write code, summarize text, and support research all with a focus on being helpful, safe, and easy to interact with.
Fast payoff:
Upload a document, ask Claude to summarize, brainstorm, or draft content, and within seconds, you’ll have clear, usable outputs. It’s like having a knowledgeable co-worker who can process large amounts of text, handle repetitive tasks, and give you instant insights, boosting productivity without the learning curve.
Giveaway of the Week 🎁
🎥 VEO 3 + Canvas Prompting Giveaway - Cinema-Quality UGC from Just 2 Images
E-commerce brands and agencies are constantly battling with one major pain point:
❌ Expensive product shoots
❌ Inconsistent UGC quality
❌ Random AI outputs with no brand control
The result? Wasted time, wasted budget, and content that doesn’t convert.
This week’s giveaway changes that. It’s a done-for-you Canvas Prompting setup inside VEO 3, so you can turn any product photo + model shot into scroll-stopping, cinema-quality videos in minutes.
🤯 Meet Canvas Prompting – The breakthrough technique that gives AI visual context and delivers brand-ready UGC on autopilot.
Inside this setup:
✅ Visual Context Engine – Upload just 2 images (product + model) and generate polished, ad-ready video content.
✅ Perfect Product ↔ Model Integration – Seamlessly place your products in lifestyle scenes with unmatched realism.
✅ Brand Consistency Mode – Lock in your colors, styles, and messaging for every video output.
✅ Realism Booster – Achieve higher believability scores than text-only prompting.
✅ Predictable Content Flow – No more random generations, get repeatable, reliable UGC every time.
✨ Whether you’re an e-commerce operator, creative strategist, or agency, this automation becomes your in-house content studio, minus the studio costs.
No pricey shoots. No endless retakes. Just cinema-quality videos on demand.
👉 Watch the full Loom walkthrough + grab the ready-to-use Canvas Prompt Templates: VEO 3 Canvas Prompting Giveaway
See y’all next week 👋
The future of marketing is about data-driven creativity and ruthlessly accurate measurement. Let's build that future together.
— Full Funnel Team 📨