This Week in M&A Issue #238
May 25, 2026
Aloha!
Today’s trend of the week is “Hacky Sack”.
Hacky Sack is having an unexpected comeback.
The simple footbag game that dominated the ‘80s and ‘90s is suddenly everywhere again, with Gen Z driving the trend across high schools, campuses, TikTok, and Instagram.
Some retailers have already sold out of stock as demand surges. Google search interest spiked in April, reaching 1.5 million searches, up 324% year over year.
For ecommerce brands, this creates several opportunities. Low-cost products tied to nostalgia and offline social interaction are clearly resonating with younger audiences. Sellers in toys, sports accessories, novelty products, and even apparel can tap into the trend while demand is still climbing.
Today we have for you:
- A look at Google’s biggest search upgrade in 25 years
- Amazon seller numbers fall while traffic per seller rises
And:
- Amazon affiliate ROAS beat PPC performance during Prime Day 2025
-
Lessons from a $40 million exit
-
WordPress 7.0 is here
Alright, let’s dive in.
Google Search
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Image Source: Giphy
Google’s New Search Experience Shifts From Rankings to AI-Generated Answers
Google held its I/O developer conference on May 19 and announced several exciting new updates.
New Search Experience
In its biggest search upgrade in more than 25 years, Google is rebuilding Search around AI-generated answers and persistent AI agents.
The new experience accepts text, images, documents, video, and even open browser tabs as inputs, then generates synthesized answers instead of traditional ranked results. The traditional Search bar is now more dynamic, including an expanding input field for longer queries and “AI-powered suggestions” meant to go beyond autocomplete.
In results, Google is pushing deeper into AI-generated answers. Users can continue in AI Mode from AI Overviews, generating a custom page with an AI-written summary rather than a list of links.
Google said AI Mode now has more than 1 billion monthly users, while Search and advertising revenue still grew 19% year over year to $60.4 billion in Q1. This shows the shift to AI answers has not yet undermined Search’s ad business.
Search Agents
Google also introduced “Search agents,” AI assistants that continuously monitor topics and send updates automatically. These agents can track blogs, news sites, social posts, shopping updates, finance, and sports data, then deliver summarized alerts when something changes.
This is a great way to get users to return to your site when you release new content or products. The feature is expected to launch in summer 2026 for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.
Universal Cart
On the ecommerce side, Google announced Universal Cart, designed to combine products from multiple retailers into one checkout flow across Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail using Google Wallet.
The system can surface price comparisons, stock availability, loyalty perks, merchant offers, and price-drop alerts while also flagging issues like incompatible products.
Google says its Shopping Graph now includes 60 billion product listings, creating the foundation for a much more integrated shopping experience across its ecosystem.
Amazon
Amazon Traffic Per Seller Is Rising Fast Across Global Markets
Amazon sellers are now getting a greater share of traffic.
New data from Marketplace Pulse shows that, on average, each active seller now receives about 3,544 monthly visits, up 25% over the past year. That is a significant increase over the previous four years, where total growth was only 31% combined.
The reason is that total traffic on Amazon keeps growing globally, while the number of active sellers is decreasing. Marketplace Pulse estimates that active sellers dropped 16% to under 1.56 million. At the same time, Amazon’s marketplaces together now generate around 5.5 billion monthly visits. With fewer sellers competing for a larger pool of traffic, each seller is getting a larger share.
Interestingly, this is no longer just a US phenomenon.
When this trend was first measured in 2021, the US was the only marketplace where traffic per seller was clearly rising. Now, nearly every Amazon marketplace is seeing the same shift, and in many cases, the strongest growth is outside the US.
Markets like Mexico, France, Poland, and the Netherlands have all seen traffic per seller increase between 40% and 57% in the past year. Brazil alone added 36 million monthly visits while its active seller base dropped 23%, driving a 57% jump in traffic per seller. Even mature European marketplaces are seeing steady double-digit increases.
Several structural factors are driving this. Selling on Amazon has become more expensive, with higher fees and rising ad costs. Competition has also intensified, with Chinese sellers now making up more than half of Amazon’s global seller base. At the same time, AI tools are widening the gap between larger, more efficient operators and smaller sellers.
One important nuance is that Amazon’s top ten marketplaces still account for 92% of both global traffic and sellers. So while the trend is global, the bulk of the opportunity is still concentrated in a small number of regions.
At the end of the day, the average Amazon seller now has more potential demand available, but capturing it requires a higher level of execution than before.
Amazon Affiliates
Amazon Affiliate Marketing Outperformed PPC During Prime Day 2025
Most Amazon brands went into Prime Day 2025 expecting PPC costs to rise. What many didn’t expect was that affiliate marketing was quietly outperforming PPC.
New data from Levanta shows that affiliate marketing continued gaining efficiency during Prime Day 2025, even as Amazon PPC became more expensive and less effective. While Amazon Sponsored Products ROAS dropped 12.5% year over year, affiliate ROAS actually increased by 5.3%.
The report analyzed 390 brands that ran affiliate programs during both Prime Day 2024 and 2025.
Here’s what changed in 2025:
- Affiliate ROAS increased 5.3%
- Amazon Sponsored Products ROAS fell 12.5%
- Sales per brand grew 16.9% during the four-day event
- Post-Prime Day sales stayed 57% above baseline
In the eight weeks leading up to Prime Day 2025, sales stayed above normal levels the entire time. In 2024, shoppers pulled back spending before the event, but that dip completely disappeared in 2025.
And the momentum didn’t stop when Prime Day ended. The week after the event remained a major sales opportunity, with sales sitting 57% above baseline levels.
Rather than acting as a short burst of sales, Prime Day has evolved into a multi-week shopping cycle.
The reason affiliate is gaining ground comes down to how the channel works. PPC gets more expensive as competition increases because brands pay for every click. Affiliates only pay when a sale happens. That means creators can keep driving discovery and traffic before, during, and after Prime Day without the same cost pressure.
If you’re making budget decisions before Prime Day 2026, these are important trends to pay attention to. The brands getting ahead are the ones building affiliate programs that stay active across the entire Prime Day season.
Read All About It!
🧠 5 ways to start a business with less than $1,000: tools and strategies
📱 Lovable launches vibe coding mobile app: available on Apple & Google stores
⚡ How to build custom SEO reports with Claude Code: speed up reporting
🪙 A list of funding options and grants for entrepreneurs: plus how to win them
The Opportunity podcast
![Building for Acquisition Lessons From a $40 Million Exit With Beth Mazza [Ep.213]](https://1745913.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/1745913/Building%20for%20Acquisition%20Lessons%20From%20a%20$40%20Million%20Exit%20With%20Beth%20Mazza%20%5BEp.213%5D.png)
The Systems Behind a High-Value Business Exit
Most founders think selling a business is the finish line.
For Beth Mazza, it was a stepping stone to even greater heights.
After selling her first consulting firm for a modest valuation, Beth rebuilt her next company with an exit in mind from day one. The result? A $40 million exit and a crash course in what buyers actually value.
In this episode of the Opportunity Podcast, Beth shares the lessons she learned from both exits, from building systems that reduce founder dependency to creating relationships with potential buyers years before selling.
Beth also opens up about the emotional side of entrepreneurship and the identity shift that comes after exiting your business.
If you’re building a service business, thinking about a future exit, or simply trying to create a company that can operate without you, this episode is packed with practical insights and hard-earned lessons from someone who has successfully done it twice.
Websites
WordPress 7.0 Brings New AI Features and Better Design Tools
The much-anticipated WordPress 7.0 is now available. The focus is on making site building and management simpler, especially for non-technical users and small teams.
A major update is deeper integration with AI tools directly inside WordPress. Site owners will be able to use AI to help generate pages, structure layouts, and handle more routine website management tasks.
There are also changes to how pages are built using the block editor. The pattern system has been expanded, which means reusable page sections are easier to use across your site. Instead of rebuilding layouts from scratch, you can assemble pages from pre-designed blocks, which also helps keep design consistent.
Navigation has been improved too. Menus and site structure now adapt more smoothly across desktop, tablet, and mobile, making it easier to control how users move through your site without technical workarounds.
Another useful upgrade is the revision history system. It’s now clearer what changed on a page and easier to roll back to previous versions if something breaks.
However, this is a major WordPress release, and that means you shouldn’t rush to install the update before your site is ready.
The core update comes with underlying technical changes, including a higher minimum PHP requirement (PHP 7.4 or above) and changes to core systems and the editor.
The risk is not WordPress itself, but the ecosystem around it. Plugins and themes may not all be fully compatible yet. That can lead to broken layouts, missing functionality, or issues with key flows like checkout or email automation, especially on complex sites.
Most plugin developers also take time to catch up with major releases, which creates a gap between what WordPress supports and what your tools are ready for.
The practical approach is to avoid updating your live site immediately. Update plugins and themes first, test everything in a staging environment, and confirm compatibility. Keep full backups ready so you can roll back if needed.
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