Obnoxious behavior from Facebook is no surprise but we still should mention that they just blocked their users from all legitimate Australian news sources. Lies are still welcome. It’s part of Facebook’s fight against a proposal that they pay news companies for using the information. Google also dislikes the idea but chose to cut a global deal with News Corp.

Email optimization vendor Validity has sorrows of its own: best practices including list hygiene, deliverability optimization, and A/B testing were used less last year than the year before.  High-performing companies were more likely to use most tools although AI was an intriguing exception: it was actually more common among marketers with lower inbox placement rates.

Products to connect ad impressions with sales results are usually limited to one ad type and one sales channel.  You can add VideoAmp and TransUnion to that list: they’ve launched an offering that links VideoAmpt’s TV viewer data with TransUnion’s TruAudience purchase data.  VideoAmp can also use the data to optimize media plans in real time.