Hey, it’s Kylie, your Content Manager at Adspace. This week, we’re diving into the antitrust case that just shook Google’s ad empire, unpacking the underrated PPC tools actually worth your budget, and getting real about LinkedIn’s quiet rebrand into a creator platform. Plus, we’ve got a few brand safety upgrades from TikTok that might save you from running pre-roll next to a guy blending hot dogs with Monster Energy. 🌭⚡

In today’s email: 

1. The Secret Sauce: 4 Underrated PPC Tools in 2025

2. Creative Insights: Welcome to LinkedIn’s Creator Era

3. Industry News: Google's Monopoly Move Just Backfired — Now What?

4. Brand Highlights: Take the BS Out of Beauty — Beauty Pie 

5. Tech Talk: Keep Your Ads Out of the Weird Part of TikTok

THE SECRET SAUCE 🍲

4 Underrated PPC Tools to Actually Compete in 2025

Let’s be honest: B2B PPC in 2025 is a challenge. Tracking is unreliable, attribution is still complicated, and your competitors seem to have endless budgets and no limits.

If you’re still relying on native platform tools alone, you’re probably missing the full picture and burning budget while you’re at it. Here are four under-the-radar tools worth your attention.

1. Growify: Attribution Without the Bias

Attribution in 2025 is still a minefield, but Growify is one of the rare tools helping marketers walk through it without blowing their budgets.

Why it’s actually useful:

• Built for B2B complexity: Growify was made for multi-touch, multi-month buying journeys, especially those with many steps and touchpoints.

• Custom attribution models that reflect your funnel: Not some generic last-click logic or what Google thinks happened.

• Cross-channel clarity: It pulls from all your major touchpoints (Paid media, Organic Search, Email, and Offline/event data).

• No-fluff insights you can actually use: Forget vanity metrics. Growify highlights the channels and campaigns that actually move the pipeline, so you know where to double down and what to cut loose.

Growify offers a free trial, so click here to get in touch with their team. 

2. Stape – The Not-So-Optional Server-Side Solution

Client-side tracking is on the ropes. Between Chrome’s new opt-outs, rising ad blocker usage, and cookiepocalypse part two, server-side is the only way to get clean, consistent data.

Enter Stape: simple, cost-effective, and surprisingly robust.

Highlights:

• Effortless GTM integration: Stape seamlessly integrates with Google Tag Manager, eliminating the need for complex engineering setup.

• Dual-mode functionality: Works across both browser and server modes, offering flexibility to suit your needs.

• Cleaner, more consistent tracking: Maintains accurate data flow, unaffected by privacy pop-ups, blocked scripts, or other tracking barriers.

• Future-proofed for privacy: As privacy regulations tighten and cookies phase out, Stape helps ensure your tracking remains compliant and reliable.

If you’re not at least starting your move to server-side, it’s only a matter of time before your analytics become fiction.

3. Semrush (and Friends) – Your Competitive Intel Stack

You can’t out-optimize someone if you have no idea what they’re doing. Semrush remains a go-to for digging into competitor spend, keywords, and landing pages.

But don’t stop there:

• Meta Ad Library shows what creatives your competitors are running right now.
  Google Ad Transparency Center lets you filter their ads by format, geo, and launch date.

• LinkedIn Ad Library (underrated!) for targeting strategies and copy inspiration.

This isn’t spying—it’s due diligence.

4. Google Ads Editor – The Old Reliable (Still Worth It)

It’s not glamorous, but Google Ads Editor still gets things done. If your team’s not using it for bulk changes, audits, and large account maintenance, you're probably wasting time.

Still relevant because:

• Bulk editing saves hours when campaigns get complex

• Offline access = productivity even when your Wi-Fi doesn’t cooperate

• Custom rules flag missteps before your budget pays for them

There’s no shortage of flashy new tools out there, but most fade out after their LinkedIn moment. These four have proven their value.

If you're prioritizing performance over pretty dashboards, start here. The rest is just you—working smarter, not louder

CREATIVE INSIGHTS 🧑‍🎨

LinkedIn Finally Built a Toolkit for People Who Hate Posting

If LinkedIn still feels like a place for humblebrags and life-changing coffee chats, it might be time to rethink your scroll.

LinkedIn just introduced a new tool called Create on LinkedIn Hub. LinkedIn is trying to shed its reputation as the corporate cousin of social media and become a real player in the creator game. And they’ve brought receipts.

What Is This “Hub” and Should You Care?

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: It’s a sleek new site packed with tips, strategies, and tools to help you stop posting “inspiration” and start posting intentionally. It’s split into three sections:

• Create – So you’re not just winging it anymore.

• Optimize – Because a blurry infographic from 2020 isn’t cutting it.

• Grow – It’s all about metrics and visibility. 

New Tools You Might Actually Use

This isn’t just another corporate resource dump. LinkedIn rolled out actual tools that could make a difference, especially if you’re managing a personal brand, executive voice, or a B2B page that desperately needs some personality.

Here’s what’s in the toolbox:

• Tips for writing posts that don’t read like legal disclaimers

• Advice on how to not totally bomb your LinkedIn Lives or video posts

• Best practices for using carousels, newsletters, and other features you’ve probably been ignoring

Why This Isn’t Just Another Corporate Time Sink

In a world where literally everyone is a “content creator,” standing out on LinkedIn takes more than posting a Canva quote card and hoping for the best. The Creator Hub actually helps you get strategic, whether that means:

• Refining your brand voice so it doesn’t sound like it was written by ChatGPT circa 2021

• Testing new formats like newsletters or video to shake up the algorithm

• Building a post cadence that doesn’t feel like shouting into the void

And maybe—just maybe—you’ll stop getting 3 likes on that carefully crafted “here’s what I learned in Q1” breakdown.

INDUSTRY NEWS 📰

Google Just Got Smacked by the Feds—Here’s Why You Should Care

In a major antitrust ruling, a federal court found that Google has been illegally flexing its monopoly muscles in the ad tech space. Translation? The way we buy and manage digital ads might be headed for a serious shake-up.

Here’s the TL;DR:

The Ruling

Google was found guilty of monopolizing two key markets:

• Publisher ad servers (where ads are managed and delivered)

• Ad exchanges (where ad space is bought and sold in real-time)

The court says Google tied its own tools together in a way that boxed out competitors and left publishers with little choice but to play by Google’s rules.

What’s Next?

The government wants Google to break up its ad tech business, specifically the part that runs ads across third-party websites. Google’s fighting it, but if the breakup happens, it could trigger the biggest restructuring of the digital ad landscape we’ve seen in years.

Why Digital Marketers Should Pay Attention

This isn’t just a Big Tech soap opera. This ruling could seriously affect how and where you buy ads, and what it costs you. Here’s what could change:

• Less dominance = more options. If Google’s grip loosens, alternative ad tech platforms might become more competitive and maybe even cheaper.

• Market volatility. As the dust settles, ad inventory and pricing could get a little wild. Budget planning might need more flexibility.

• Shift in strategy. If certain Google tools get spun off or restructured, marketers may need to rethink how they use Display & Video 360, Ad Manager, or even Google Ads integrations.

Google’s ad ecosystem isn’t collapsing, but it is being cracked open. Smart marketers will start watching these legal moves closely—and thinking ahead about diversification, agility, and where they’re placing their media bets.

For more information, check out this article on Axios.

BRAND HIGHLIGHTS 💎

What Happens When You Take the BS Out of Beauty: Beauty Pie

In an industry where moisturizers regularly flirt with triple-digit price tags and packaging feels more expensive than the product itself, Beauty Pie has managed to do the unthinkable: make luxury beauty feel...reasonable.

Founded in 2016 by beauty industry vet Marcia Kilgore, Beauty Pie has grown into a multi-million-dollar brand by asking one simple question: Why are we still paying 12x markup for face cream? Kilgore saw through the smoke and mirrors, and built a brand based on transparency, access, and an unapologetically direct-to-consumer model.

How It Works (And Why It Works)

Beauty Pie’s entire premise rests on a beautifully simple idea: pay a monthly or annual membership fee, and gain access to luxury-grade skincare, makeup, and wellness products at factory prices. No inflated markups. No celebrity spokesperson. Just formulas made in the same elite labs that manufacture for prestige brands (minus the prestige pricing). It’s essentially a Costco model for beauty… if Costco had a glam team and a very good retinol.

D2C, Minus the Buzzwords

Their approach to distribution is just as direct. Beauty Pie has no retail footprint. By going all-in on D2C, they bypass traditional channels and the markup that comes with them. More importantly, they maintain full control over the customer journey, keeping the experience frictionless and brand-loyalty tight. Real-time customer feedback feeds directly into product development, giving members a stake in the process. It’s beauty, by committee and people love it.

Low-Budget Marketing, High-Impact Messaging

And while most luxury beauty brands are still paying agencies six figures to stage minimalist cream jars next to marble bathtubs, Beauty Pie has kept marketing lean. They’ve bet on word of mouth, social media engagement, and the raw power of smart value positioning. They don’t scream “affordable luxury”—they show it, down to the cost breakdown on every product page. The message is simple: you’re not buying our markup, you’re buying what works.

The Psychology of Feeling Smart

Perhaps the cleverest part of the strategy is that Beauty Pie still feels premium. Even though the prices are lower, the branding, packaging, and formulas communicate quality. They aren’t trying to be “cheap and cheerful.” They’re saying, “You’ve been paying too much, and we both know it.” That kind of elegant defiance hits home in a cultural moment where people want their purchases to feel both indulgent and intelligent.

The Marketer’s Takeaway

For marketers, Beauty Pie is more than a case study. They are a reminder that challenging category norms still works when you have a clear POV and the courage to build around it. Pricing transparency, direct customer relationships, and a community-first approach might not be flashy, but in Beauty Pie’s case, it’s working better than flash ever could.

TECH TALK 🤖

How to Keep Your Ads Out of the Weird Part of TikTok

If you’ve ever run a TikTok ad and thought, “Please don’t let this play next to a guy deep-frying a shoe”—TikTok heard your cries. Kinda.

The platform just dropped two new features designed to give advertisers a little more say in what weird corners of the internet their brand ends up in. It’s part of TikTok’s Safety Suite. Here’s what’s hot off the algorithm:

Video Exclusion List

You can now block specific video IDs to keep your ads away from content that doesn’t reflect your brand. Especially useful when the latest viral moment isn’t exactly a fit.

Profile Feed Exclusion List

You can also keep your ads far, far away from certain creators’ profiles. Because while freedom of expression is great, your pre-roll ad doesn’t need to follow that guy who thinks ketchup is a smoothie.

The Brand Safety & Suitability Playbook

TikTok also released a playbook to walk us through their Safety Suite, complete with:

• Step-by-step guides

• Decision trees (because who doesn’t love a good flowchart?)

• Industry case studies

• A gentle reminder that brand alignment > brand safety

TikTok is shifting the focus from simply avoiding scandals to helping brands maintain a higher standard of alignment.

Why You Should Care

Because in the lawless land of UGC, one minute you’re next to a wholesome dance challenge, and the next you’re side-by-side with a conspiracy theory set to lo-fi beats. Control is a beautiful thing, and now you have more of it.

So go ahead, build your blocklist. Protect your brand. And sleep a little easier knowing you won’t wake up in a crisis meeting because your ad ran next to “Fermented Foods I Found in My Attic – Part 7.”

For more information check out Search Engine Land.

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