Ads are back in full force and not everyone was expecting it.

“The venture capital world spent a decade betting against advertising, and it’s about to blow up in their faces,” Bryan Goldberg, CEO of Bustle, told the NY Times.

He was referring to how subscriptions have become the darling model of many industries — then 2020 happened. While people were stuck at home, online shopping climbed and hasn’t stopped since in a “post-pandemic Roaring Twenties economy.” Digital ad dollars are pouring in.

A report by Agency Group M showed digital media grew by more than 7% in 2020, projecting 22% growth in 2021. Google and Facebook make up about 87% of the growth according to the NY Times and Interactive Advertising Bureau.

This all could change now that Apple has rolled out its iOS update requiring your permission to track your online activity (Facebook is not happy). Nonetheless, since digital ads are here to stay, now’s a good time to see what makers launched to improve your advertising.

Audience Targeting
ExactBuyer: If your lookalike audiences aren't looking at your ads, they might be worth another look. This new API and data-enrichment tool was built by data scientists to improve your audience targeting with just-in-time updates.

Repixel 2.0: Let’s say you sell tennis balls — targeting a company that sells rackets sounds about right. This tool was built to help you share pixels and find partners in your niche.

Setup
Analyzify: If you have a Shopify store, Analyzify can help you set up Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics 4, Facebook Pixels, and Universal Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce without any coding expertise.

Management
ADYOUNEED: This new tool aims to simplify your ad process by giving you one place to create, manage, and optimize your ads across platforms.

We think you've heard this one before, but just in case: there are also a whole host of GPT-3 tools to help you with your ad copy.

Notion's API launched in public beta yesterday and the reactions are just what we expected.

"I don't think I have ever seen that much expectation for an API before." – Nicolas Grenié

"FINALLY!😱 You guys are incredible" – Denis Danilov

"Notion is treating the API as a first-tier product and this version is already quite robust. Now I have to decide what idea to pick first!" – Veronica

Makers also chimed in with their new API integrations, from Typeform to Automate.io. Check out the buzz for yourself.