HubSpot’s New Edge: Person-Level Website Intent Now Built In

HubSpot buys Warmly's intent AI, OpenAI expands ChatGPT ad formats, Instagram joins Google Search, Google rewrites its ad terms, and Search Console finally shows your AI Overviews data.

Author

Code Peddle
July 07, 2026

Hey there, Digital Marketing Rockstars! 🎸

Manmeet here, this week is about platforms deciding to act, not just record. HubSpot just bought a tool that tells you exactly who is on your website before they ever raise their hand. Google rewrote its ad terms to make automation the default, not the opt-in. Instagram posts are now SEO assets. And OpenAI is quietly building the ad platform that will change what it means to buy attention inside an AI conversation. Five stories, one theme: the systems you already use are making bigger moves than the features you can see in the interface.

In today's email:

1. Marketing Automation: HubSpot acquires Warmly and adds real-time buyer intent to its CRM. 📈
2. Content/AI: OpenAI is building video, image, and conversational ad formats into ChatGPT. 🤖
3. Social Media: Instagram posts are now showing up in Google Search starting July 10.💡
4. PPC: Google rewrote its ad terms for the first time since 2018, and automation is now the default. 👀
5. SEO: Google Search Console finally shows your AI Overviews visibility, and lets you opt out. 🌐

Marketing Automation

HubSpot Acquires Warmly: Your CRM Is About to Know Who's On Your Website

HubSpot announced its acquisition of Warmly on June 30. Warmly is best known for identifying more than half of anonymous B2B website visitors at the individual level, people who browse your site and leave without filling in a form. The deal also folds in Warmly's two AI agents: an Inbound Agent that turns live buying signals into conversations and meeting requests, and a TAM Agent that identifies and engages outbound targets before they ever visit. Existing Warmly contracts and pricing stay unchanged for now.

Our Hot Take:
Stop treating your CRM as a filing cabinet. Roughly 95% of your website visitors leave without identifying themselves, and most teams only know the company, not the person. Warmly closes that gap, and HubSpot is buying it for the same reason Salesforce bought Qualified: owning the intent layer is worth more than adding another feature. The move before the platform makes this native is to connect your intent signals, CRM data, and outreach sequences into one system. Three separate tools syncing once a day is how pipeline leaks.

Content Marketing

OpenAI Is Building Video, Image, and Conversational Ads Into ChatGPT

Three new engineering roles posted to OpenAI's careers page on July 1 make it official: the company is moving well beyond its current single sponsored unit. The job specs describe building infrastructure for text, image, video, native, conversational, and interactive ad formats inside ChatGPT. The platform already has 2,000-plus brands running through Criteo, a self-serve ads manager, and a pilot live in seven countries. The new formats are in active engineering, not sitting on a product roadmap.

Our Hot Take:
ChatGPT ads started as a small box below an answer. They're becoming a full ad stack. That splits AI visibility into two separate games: getting cited in an AI answer through GEO and AEO work (earned), and paying to show up as a sponsored placement (paid). Most teams haven't separated those yet, and they need to. If you're already in the pilot, document your setup choices now, because the formats will multiply and you'll want a baseline to compare against.

Social Media Marketing / PPC

Instagram Posts Are Now Showing Up in Google Search

Starting July 10, Google will display public content from professional Instagram accounts directly in search results. Reels, carousels, and regular posts are all eligible. The change effectively turns every Instagram caption, alt text, and hashtag into a potential SEO asset. For brands that have treated Instagram and organic search as completely separate channels, that separation is now officially over.

Our Hot Take:
Most Instagram captions are written for a person scrolling at speed, which means they're useless to a search engine. A caption that says 'So much fun at the event!' tells Google nothing. One that says 'Three things we learned about B2B demand gen at this week's Austin marketing summit' works on both surfaces. Put the actual topic in the first two lines, add alt text to every image, and treat Reel descriptions like headlines. This week, audit your last ten posts and count how many of them would make sense to someone who found them through Google rather than your profile.

Google Rewrote Its Ad Terms for the First Time Since 2018. Automation Is Now the Default.

Google's updated Advertising Program Terms took effect on July 1, the first revision since 2018. The new language gives Google explicit authorisation to use automated systems to generate, select, and optimise ad targets, ads, and landing destinations on an advertiser's behalf. It also covers content entered into conversational tools like Gemini and URLs that advertisers authorise Google to crawl. The key tension is this: Google's AI now has broader permission to build your campaigns, but you remain legally responsible for whatever it produces.

Our Hot Take:
This isn't a feature launch. It's a legal shift that formalises what's been quietly true for years: Google's AI has been writing your headlines, and now the contract says so explicitly. In Q4 2025, it produced around 70 million auto-generated ad assets. The practical implication is simple: auto-generated assets are your responsibility, not Google's. Set up a monthly review of what the system is producing in Performance Max and any campaign where you've given Google crawl access. Outdated pricing and inaccurate claims will show up. You're on the hook for them.

SEO

Google Search Console Finally Shows Your AI Overviews Visibility. And Gives You a Kill Switch.

Google launched dedicated AI performance reports in Search Console on June 3, giving site owners a separate view of how often their pages appear inside AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover. This week's July Webmaster Report confirms Google has expanded access beyond the initial UK pilot. The same rollout includes a toggle that lets publishers block their content from appearing in AI search features entirely, with no impact on standard organic rankings.

Our Hot Take:
For two years, SEOs have been flying blind on AI Overviews. Now there's data. The more interesting piece is the opt-out toggle, and it's not a simple call: if AI Overviews are eating your impressions without delivering clicks, opting out makes sense. If you're building authority in a B2B niche, showing up in AI responses may be worth more than the traffic. The data shows you how often you're appearing. It doesn't tell you whether that's good for your business. That's your call. Check your Search Console this week and make it deliberately.

Related Blog:
Top Content Marketing Strategies for Local SEO: AEO, GEO & SEO in Action

Recommended Readings

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Tip of the Week

Pick one Google Ads campaign where you've given Google broad access, whether that's a Performance Max campaign, a connected Merchant Center, or a campaign where auto-generated assets are turned on, and spend 30 minutes reviewing exactly what it's been producing. Read the headlines, sitelinks, and descriptions that Google wrote. Check them against your current offers and pricing. You don't need to overhaul the campaign. You just need to know what's running in your name.💡

Summary:

Here is the quick recap.

  •  Marketing Automation: HubSpot's acquisition of Warmly brings person-level website intent into the CRM. Wire your intent signals and your outreach together before you add more automation on top. 📈

  • Content/AI: OpenAI is building a full ad stack inside ChatGPT. The gap between free AI visibility and paid AI placement is now a real strategic question for every brand. 🤖

  • Social Media: Instagram posts are indexed by Google from July 10. Treat captions and alt text like copy, not afterthoughts. 💡

  • PPC: Google's new ad terms make AI-generated campaigns your legal responsibility. Build a review process for auto-generated assets now. 👀

  •  SEO: Google Search Console now shows AI Overviews impressions and includes an opt-out toggle. Pull the report and make a deliberate decision about the toggle before someone defaults into it for you. 🌐

Meme of the Week