Welcome to our February digital marketing updates roundup! 💌
From ChatGPT becoming a major traffic referrer to Meta using your private DMs to train AI, February has been all about data, privacy, and the growing influence of AI on marketing strategies.
Remember when we predicted AI would transform search? Well, with ChatGPT now driving traffic to over 30,000 websites daily, that future is already here—and it’s reshaping everything from SEO to content creation.
Quick read: here’s what we’re unpacking this month:
- Search Marketing Updates: ChatGPT is now sending traffic to 30,000+ domains daily and AI overviews are changing click-through rates
- Martech Updates: Claude 3.7 Sonnet’s hybrid reasoning capabilities and Notion’s time-saving automation features
- Social Media Updates: TikTok One replaces Creator Marketplace and Instagram’s DM upgrades raise privacy questions
- About Frizbit: Our Magento Plugin V2 slashes integration time, and we welcome our first telecommunications client
Ready to explore how these changes could transform your marketing strategy?
Let’s dive into this month’s digital marketing updates!
Search marketing updates
1. ChatGPT’s rising influence on web traffic
Key highlights:
- ChatGPT’s referrals to websites have tripled since July 2024
- Over 30,000 unique domains now receive daily traffic from ChatGPT
- Users are discovering new websites through AI conversations
- A new traffic source marketers can’t afford to ignore
📌 Is your website ready to capture traffic from AI platforms? And how might this shift change your approach to content creation?
ChatGPT is quickly becoming a major traffic referrer for websites across the internet. Back in July 2024, ChatGPT directed users to fewer than 10,000 unique domains each day.
By November, this number jumped to over 30,000 domains daily, representing a 200% increase in just four months, according to this report from Statista and Semrush.
This trend signals a significant shift in how users discover content online. People aren’t just asking ChatGPT questions any more—they’re actively using it as a medium to explore new websites and content.
For marketers, as it couldn’t be in any other way, this represents both a challenge and opportunity as traffic patterns evolve.
What does this mean for your strategy?
- Content visibility is now partly determined by how useful AI systems find your information
- Website authority matters more than ever for AI referrals
- Clear, structured content tends to perform better with AI systems
- Traditional SEO metrics may not fully capture your potential visibility
🚀 Practical steps for your strategy:
- Monitor your analytics for AI-driven traffic sources
- Blog posts could be a new way of traffic now, we suggest conducting market research in ChatGPT and aligning your strategy with the results that you find
- Create content that answers specific questions clearly
- Structure your content with proper headings and markup
- Focus on building genuine authority in your niche
- Bonus: Blog posts related to topics such as listings, ‘best [Insert your niche here] are frequent queries ChatGPT is using
2. AI overviews causing significant shifts in search results
Key highlights:
- 15-20% reduction in organic click-through rates for pages with AI overviews
- AI is summarising content directly in search results
- Some websites losing visibility while others gain traction
- Structured data becoming more crucial for visibility
📌 How are AI-generated search overviews affecting your website traffic? Are you seeing changes in how users find and interact with your content?
AI overviews in search results are fundamentally changing how information appears to users. These concise summaries often provide enough information that users don’t need to click through to websites.
In recent testing, pages featuring AI overviews showed a 15-20% reduction in organic click-through rates for certain queries.
This shift requires rethinking content strategies to ensure your information stands out not just to human readers, but to the AI systems that increasingly mediate content discovery.
Websites with clear, authoritative content structured with proper headings and markup are gaining an advantage in this new landscape.
What’s really happening:
- AI is becoming the gatekeeper between users and websites
- Highly structured content gets featured more prominently in AI overviews
- Authority signals influence whether AI references your content
- Complex topics with nuance often drive more clicks than simple facts
🚀 Making it work in practice:
- Implement structured data markup to help AI understand your content
- Create comprehensive content that AI can easily summarise
- Monitor how your site appears in AI-generated results
- Focus on topics where users need more than just a quick answer
Martech updates
1. Anthropic unveils Claude 3.7 Sonnet
Key highlights:
- Hybrid reasoning model offers both quick answers and deep analysis
- 35% improvement in complex reasoning tasks compared to previous versions
- Front-end coding capabilities improved significantly
- Choose between fast responses or step-by-step reasoning
📌 Could an AI assistant that thinks more deeply transform your marketing workflows? How might AI reasoning capabilities enhance your content creation and data analysis?
Anthropic’s new Claude 3.7 Sonnet gives users a choice between rapid responses and more thorough, step-by-step reasoning. This hybrid model combines both capabilities in one framework, offering flexibility based on what you need at the moment.
For marketers handling content creation and data analysis, this dual approach means you can get quick answers for simple tasks, but also request detailed explanations when working on complex problems.
The model also shows impressive improvements in coding, particularly for front-end web development, which can help marketing teams build and modify landing pages and interactive content more efficiently.
In practical testing, Claude 3.7 Sonnet demonstrated a 35% improvement in complex reasoning tasks compared to previous versions, while maintaining response speeds for straightforward queries.
What this means for marketing teams:
- Content creation assistance with more nuanced understanding
- Data analysis support with step-by-step reasoning when needed
- Better accuracy for complex marketing questions
- Potential for more sophisticated automation workflows
🚀 Practical applications:
- Use for drafting and editing marketing copy
- Analyse campaign performance data with more insight
- Generate code for landing pages and interactive elements
- Create more sophisticated email and ad content
2. Notion 2.48: AI workspace builder slashes setup time by 80%
Key highlights:
- AI-assisted setup reduces time by 80% when creating new workspaces
- One-click workflows for common marketing tasks
- Recurring database automations for scheduled tasks
- 30% less time spent on admin according to early adopters
📌 How much time does your team spend setting up project workspaces instead of doing creative work? Could the right tools help you focus more on strategy and less on admin?
Notion has released version 2.48 with several productivity-boosting features that could transform how marketing teams manage projects and content. Users can now describe what they need, and Notion’s AI will build custom setups instantly—reducing setup time by up to 80% according to early adopters.
The update includes pre-built setups like Task Trackers and Meeting Notes available for quick customisation, and you can now automate tasks on a schedule with recurring database features. For content calendars and campaign management, this means less manual updating and more time focused on strategy.
The new version also introduces improved database views that make it easier to visualise campaign progress and content pipelines. Teams using these features report spending 30% less time on administrative tasks and more time on creative work.
What makes this update different:
- AI does the heavy lifting of setting up workflows
- Pre-built templates can be customised with a few clicks
- Recurring tasks happen automatically without manual input
- Better visualisation tools help track progress at a glance
🚀 Try these Notion improvements for:
- Setting up editorial calendars that update automatically
- Creating campaign trackers that visualise progress
- Building meeting note templates that save time
- Automating routine status updates and reminders
Social media updates
1. TikTok expands with ‘TikTok One’ and desktop refresh despite ban uncertainty
Key highlights:
- Creator Marketplace replaced by comprehensive TikTok One platform
- 40% faster partner discovery with improved filtering options
- Major desktop interface update signals long-term strategic vision
- Continued platform development despite regulatory challenges
📌 Why is TikTok investing so heavily in new features despite facing bans in some markets? And what does this tell us about their confidence in their future?
Despite ongoing regulatory challenges and ban discussions, TikTok has launched TikTok One, a comprehensive platform designed to simplify collaborations between creators and brands.
This platform replaces the previous Creator Marketplace, offering significantly better tools for partnership management, campaign tracking, and performance analytics.
At the same time, TikTok has substantially updated its desktop experience, enhancing navigation and functionality—showing their commitment beyond mobile. These simultaneous updates raise interesting questions about TikTok’s long-term strategy and confidence in overcoming regulatory hurdles.
The new TikTok One platform includes improved creator discovery filters that help brands find partners based on audience demographics, engagement rates, and content themes.
Early users report finding suitable creators 40% faster than with the previous system. Meanwhile, the desktop refresh includes better video editing tools, more detailed analytics, and improved comment management.
What’s particularly intriguing is the timing and scale of these investments.
For a platform supposedly facing existential threats just months ago, TikTok appears remarkably confident—suggesting either that they have behind-the-scenes knowledge about regulatory outcomes or that they’re playing a long game beyond individual market restrictions.
What’s new in these updates:
- Streamlined creator discovery with advanced filtering options
- Enhanced analytics dashboards for tracking campaign performance
- Improved communication tools between brands and creators
- Desktop-optimised interfaces for content creation and management
- Better video editing capabilities on larger screens
🚀 Strategic implications for marketers:
- Don’t abandon TikTok strategies based solely on regulatory headlines
- Consider TikTok’s infrastructure investments as signals of longer-term stability
- Take advantage of desktop tools for more efficient campaign management
- Use TikTok One to find creators who truly match your brand values
- Experiment with different creator tiers to optimise ROI
- Plan contingency strategies while continuing to invest where appropriate
Is TikTok’s confidence warranted, or are they making a strategic gamble? Either way, these robust platform improvements suggest TikTok isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
2. Instagram’s double-edged sword: Enhanced messaging features while harvesting private data for AI
Key highlights:
- Scheduled messages and translations added to Instagram DMs
- 25% improvement in response rates with optimal timing
- Private DM data being used to train Meta’s AI models without clear consent
- Privacy vs convenience paradox raises ethical questions
📌 Is Meta offering these convenient new features as a trade-off for collecting more private conversation data? And should users and businesses be concerned about this exchange?
Instagram has rolled out substantial updates to its direct messaging system, introducing scheduled messages and in-chat translations.
For businesses, these features offer significant benefits: the translation feature removes language barriers by automatically translating messages in over 100 languages, while scheduled messaging allows brands to plan customer communications for optimal engagement times.
Yet there’s a concerning flipside to these enhancements. At the same time Meta is improving Instagram’s messaging capabilities, the company has quietly begun using private DM data to train its AI models, as seen below:
Many users remain unaware that their personal conversations are feeding Meta’s AI systems—creating a troubling dichotomy between service improvement and privacy exploitation.
The scheduled messaging feature allows brands to plan customer communications in advance, perfect for coordinating product launches or promotional campaigns across time zones.
Businesses testing these features have seen customer response rates improve by 25% when using optimal sending times.
This situation exemplifies the fundamental tension in today’s digital landscape: are we trading our privacy for convenience?
Meta appears to be offering enhanced tools with one hand while collecting valuable private data with the other—a strategy that raises important ethical questions about consent and transparency.
Why these developments matter:
- Convenient features come with hidden privacy costs
- Most users don’t realise their private messages train AI models
- Trust erosion could eventually impact engagement
- Businesses face ethical considerations about platform usage
🚀 Balancing benefits and concerns:
- Take advantage of new features while being transparent with your audience
- Consider informing customers that Meta may use conversation data for AI training
- Create clear data usage policies for your own marketing operations
- Develop contingency plans for potential privacy backlashes
- Consider alternative channels for truly sensitive customer communications
- Monitor Meta’s privacy practices and policy updates
As digital marketers, we must ask ourselves: at what point does the convenience of new tools become outweighed by privacy concerns? And how can we use these tools ethically while respecting our customers’ data?
About Frizbit
1. Magento Plugin V2: Faster integration for eCommerce
We’re excited to announce Version 2 of our Frizbit Magento Plugin, which significantly improves the technical integration process for eCommerce businesses. Online stores using Adobe Commerce (Magento) can now add Frizbit’s marketing automation features with just a single click, without requiring complex setups or extensive coding knowledge.
The update addresses key technical bugs and streamlines the installation process, allowing your team to focus on what matters most: growing your business. Early adopters have reported a dramatically faster setup experience and more reliable data collection since upgrading.
How it works
When you install the Frizbit module on your Magento store, our integration seamlessly embeds Frizbit’s scripts within your site. These scripts automatically transmit all the essential eCommerce and user behaviour data from your Magento store directly to your Frizbit account without requiring any additional development effort.
Frizbit’s data layer collects extensive data points on each visitor as they browse through products, add items to their cart, and complete purchases. This data is securely transferred to your Frizbit account and is then used to identify key user actions, trigger automated notifications, and tailor the content of these notifications to each user’s behaviour.
Key features and possibilities
- Multi-Channel Marketing Automation: Deliver targeted messages across web push notifications, email, SMS, and WhatsApp
- Cart Abandonment Notifications: Recover potentially lost sales with timely, personalised reminders
- Funnel Abandonment Notifications: Re-engage visitors who browse but leave without taking action
- Customisable Notification Content: Tailor messages to match your brand’s voice and style
- Multi-Language Support: Configure notifications in multiple languages for global audiences
- Real-Time Analytics: Monitor campaign performance with comprehensive metrics
🚀 What you can achieve with the new Magento Plugin:
- Set up complete marketing automation in minutes instead of days
- Implement sophisticated customer journeys without technical expertise
- Transform casual visitors into loyal customers through behavioural targeting
- Create consistent messaging across multiple communication channels
- Make data-driven decisions with comprehensive analytics
Ready to simplify your Magento integration while unlocking powerful marketing automation?
Explore the Plugin here and see how easy marketing automation can be by booking a free demo session with our experts.
Final thoughts | Digital Marketing Updates
That wraps up our February digital marketing updates! This month, we’ve seen:
- AI reshaping search marketing through ChatGPT referrals and search overviews
- New tools from Claude and Notion offering better automation and reasoning
- Social media platforms focusing on creator partnerships and messaging features
- Frizbit growing with an upgraded Magento plugin and industry expansion
Businesses that adapt quickly and focus on delivering genuinely personalised experiences are seeing the strongest results.
Stay tuned for next month’s digital marketing updates! 🚀
What digital marketing trend are you most excited about this year? Let us know in the comments!
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