Everyone's talking about Google and Meta when it comes to online advertising. But here's what most people are missing: some of the most interesting moves this week didn't come from either of them. They came from a supermarket, a satellite TV company, and a taxi app. And while that might sound like the setup to a bad joke, it tells you something important about where paid advertising is heading — and why it matters for your e-commerce business.

Let me walk you through what's been happening and, more importantly, what it actually means for you.

✓ The Big Picture: Advertising Is Spilling Out Everywhere

For years, the story was simple. If you wanted to sell products online, you put your budget into Google Shopping and Search, maybe sprinkled some on Facebook and Instagram, and called it a day. Two giants, two places to spend, job done.

That world is quietly changing. This week we've seen two announcements that show advertising is breaking out of its usual boxes and turning up in places you wouldn't expect. And the common thread running through both? Everyone now wants to prove that an advert actually led to a sale — not just a click, not just a view, but real money in the till.

That obsession with proving sales impact is the thing to watch. It's reshaping how the whole industry thinks, and it'll eventually shape how you measure your own advertising too.

✓ Target and DirecTV: When Your Telly Knows What You Bought

The first story is a partnership between Target — a massive US retailer — and DirecTV, a satellite TV provider. They've teamed up to track how premium video advertising affects actual sales.

Here's the plain-English version. Target has something incredibly valuable: data on what millions of people actually buy. DirecTV has something else valuable: it knows who's watching what on television. Put those two things together and, for the first time, an advertiser can run a video ad on TV and then see whether the people who saw it went on to buy the product.

What this actually means for you

You might be thinking, "I run a Shopify store, I'm not buying telly ads." Fair enough. But stick with me, because this matters more than it looks.

What's really going on here is the death of guesswork. For decades, TV advertising was a leap of faith — you spent the money, the brand got "out there," and you hoped it worked. Now retailers are demanding proof that every advert drives a sale.

That same demand is coming for all advertising, including the digital campaigns you're already running. The direction of travel is clear: advertisers want to connect the dots between an ad being seen and a product being bought. For your business, this is good news. It means the platforms you use are being pushed, hard, to give you better proof of what's actually working — rather than vanity metrics like impressions and clicks that look nice but don't pay the bills.

✓ Uber Wants to Be an Advertising Giant (Yes, Really)

The second story is arguably the more surprising one. Uber — the taxi and food delivery app — is expanding its advertising business well beyond its own apps.

Up to now, if you advertised with Uber, your ads appeared inside the Uber app or Uber Eats. Makes sense — someone ordering a takeaway is a captive audience. But Uber has now decided that's not enough. It wants to place ads across other websites and apps too, using everything it knows about its riders and eaters to target people wherever they are online.

Why does a taxi company care about this? Because Uber knows an extraordinary amount about you — where you go, when you go there, what you order, how often. That's advertising gold. And Uber has realised it can make serious money renting out that knowledge to businesses who want to reach the right customers.

What this actually means for you

We're watching the rise of what the industry calls "retail media" and "commerce media" — companies that aren't traditional advertising platforms suddenly becoming places you can advertise. Uber is just the latest. Amazon did it years ago. Supermarkets are doing it. Now your taxi app is at it too.

For an e-commerce business, this is a double-edged sword worth understanding:

  • More places to reach customers. Over the next year or two, you'll have a growing menu of options beyond Google and Facebook. That's more competition for the giants, which usually means better deals and more targeting choices for you.
  • More complexity to manage. More platforms means more places to spread yourself thin, more dashboards to learn, and more chances to waste money chasing shiny new channels that don't suit your products.

This is exactly the sort of thing I keep a close eye on. Not every new advertising channel is worth your time or money — and knowing which ones actually suit your business is half the battle. A taxi app's ad network might be brilliant for a food brand and completely pointless for someone selling garden furniture.

✓ So What's the Common Thread?

Step back from the detail and you'll spot the pattern. Both of these stories are about the same two things:

  1. Data is the new battleground. Whether it's Target's purchase history or Uber's travel habits, the companies winning at advertising are the ones who know the most about their customers. The advertising itself is almost an afterthought — it's the data behind it that's valuable.

  2. Everyone wants to prove sales, not clicks. The whole industry is shifting away from "look how many people saw your ad" towards "look how many people bought because of your ad." That's a healthier way to measure advertising, and it's the standard your own campaigns should be held to.

✓ What This Means Going Forward

You don't need to rush off and start advertising on Uber tomorrow. Honestly, please don't. But you do need to understand the direction things are moving, because it affects how you should think about your own advertising spend.

Here's my take, plain and simple:

  • The fundamentals still matter most. A well-structured Google Shopping campaign with a clean product feed will out-earn a scattergun approach across ten trendy platforms every single time. Get the basics right before you chase the new shiny thing.
  • Demand better proof from your advertising. The whole industry is moving towards measuring real sales impact. Your campaigns should be judged the same way — by the revenue they bring in, not by clicks and impressions that flatter the figures.
  • Stay curious, but stay disciplined. New advertising channels will keep appearing. Some will be brilliant for your business. Most won't. The skill is telling the difference before you've spent your budget finding out the hard way.

That's where having someone in your corner who actually watches all this so you don't have to makes the difference. The advertising world is getting more crowded and more complicated by the month — but the businesses that win won't be the ones chasing every new platform. They'll be the ones with a clear strategy, solid fundamentals, and the discipline to ignore the noise.

I'll keep watching the noise so you can stay focused on what counts: selling your products and growing your business. That's the job — and I rather enjoy it.