Maryland Governor Wes Moore on Thursday signed a privacy law that imposes tough new restrictions on online data collection and ad targeting. Major ad industry groups had urged Moore to veto the measure, which the groups said includes “the most onerous and restrictive approach to data privacy in the United States to date.” “The bill’s limitations on data collection are likely to result in significant degradation of beneficial products and services for Maryland consumers and harm local businesses,” the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation and Digital Advertising Alliance wrote in a letter sent to Moore last month.

Are you ready to skillfully apply the principles of human behavior to your direct mail marketing messages to gain a competitive advantage? Since people default to hardwired behaviors without giving them a thought, we can use that to drive them to the response we want. We will use those behaviors to trigger them to buy our product or service leading to better direct mail results. In part one of this series, we will focus on the decision-making process and how we can use it to convert more sales with direct mail.

"Forward bookings" -- or advanced U.S.ad sales -- for April/May expanded just 1.8% vs. the same two-month period a year ago, indicating that the second quarter is pacing to be the weakest growth since the last ad recession, according to just-released estimates from Guideline. The disclosure is an early indicator of continuing deceleration for the U.S. ad economy, and affirms the trend line revealed in Guideline's recent February update for the U.S. Ad Market Tracker, which showed one of the weakest months of ad spending growth since the last ad recession ended in April 2023.