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HOW TO REFRESH YOUR CREATIVE FOR Q5

Shift Q5 creative from gifting to self-purchase, festive urgency to planning, and seasonal messaging to everyday utility.

AMAZON IS LETTING BRANDS SHAPE ALEXA'S SHOPPING ANSWERS

Advertisers can now appear in Alexa for Shopping through sponsored prompts and product placements.

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WHO GETS PAID WHEN AI DOES THE SHOPPING?

AI shopping assistants could weaken marketplaces' advertising and commission economics by owning the customer relationship and sending orders directly to fulfillment providers. Amazon generated $69 billion in advertising revenue in 2025, so losing control of product discovery could threaten a major profit pool even if it keeps fulfilling orders. Platforms like Shopify and Toast have more reason to welcome agents because they can gain new sales while still earning software and payments revenue. The outcome depends on whether agents create new demand or simply reroute existing orders, since new purchases can offset lower profit per order.

WALMART'S COLLECTIBLES PLAY IS SHOWING US WHERE RETAIL IS HEADING

Walmart is using limited-time draws to sell scarce collectibles, including basketball cards, NeeDoh toys, and Pokémon boxes. Shoppers enter during a set window and are randomly selected instead of racing to checkout. The format creates anticipation and gives collectors a reason to discuss entry rules and results online. It shows how intentional friction can turn scarce products into experiences rather than simple transactions.

HOW B2B CREATOR MARKETING BUILDS BUYER TRUST ON LINKEDIN

B2B buyers increasingly use creators for both early research and later-stage validation. However, 80% of B2B marketers say finding credible creators is their biggest hurdle. LinkedIn recommends using Creator Marketplace to vet experts by industry, role, and audience, then amplifying their content with Thought Leader Ads or BrandLink. Thought Leader Ads deliver a 252% higher CTR than standard image ads, while BrandLink campaigns see 130% higher video completion rates than in-feed ads.

I WENT MINI VIRAL ON SUBSTACK (AFTER 9 MONTHS OF CRICKETS)

The author grew her Substack from 90 to 770 subscribers in four days. She did it with a reintroduction post featuring a photo, recognizable past employers, and an honest story about leaving corporate work. She then shared subscriber numbers in real time to keep momentum going. To stay consistent, she built a Claude Skill to help create Substack notes on a set cadence, then had a VA schedule them. An email is required to read the full post.

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE VS. FREE TRIAL: WHICH SHOULD YOUR SUBSCRIPTION APP RUN?

Asking users to pay upfront with a refund safety net lets ad campaigns optimize for real purchases instead of trial starts, giving Meta and TikTok a cleaner signal of who will pay. Few customers claim refunds, so a lower conversion rate can be offset by higher-intent subscribers. Guarantees work best in web or app-to-web funnels, since the app stores control in-app refunds.

JEV: DECISION AI FOR GTM

Jev is a new decision model that returns labels, scores, and yes/no answers with calibrated confidence instead of generated text, making it a cheap fit for classification and routing in Clay. It connects through an HTTP API column in about 10 minutes. Keep the input state short, since extra context can lower accuracy. Add an "unclear" option and write criteria that don't overlap. Set stricter confidence thresholds for hard-to-undo actions, then gate paid enrichment and LLM writing on the result.

AI AND THE AGENCY OF THE FUTURE (WEBINAR)

Blin Kazazi and Dan Hinckley will discuss where AI fits inside an agency today. They'll cover what's changing in search and client demand, what the agency of the future looks like, and what agency owners get wrong about AI. The free webinar will take place today at 11 AM CT.

LINKEDIN IS MY MEDIUM

An artist created an AI-generated version of herself who is more polished and corporate than her real-world self. She uses AI to generate LinkedIn posts and images depicting promotions, luxury offices, leadership roles, and eventually a corporate scandal. The project satirizes LinkedIn's culture of self-promotion and professional visibility while questioning where performance ends and genuine professional identity begins. The irony is that the satire itself generates visibility and could make the artist more employable.

WHY STRONG PMMS ARE STRUGGLING TO LAND JOBS (AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT)

Strong PMMs are struggling to land jobs because companies are hiring cautiously and looking for candidates who fit specific business needs. Job seekers experience three common roadblocks: broad positioning, forgettable interviews, and explaining experience instead of demonstrating how you would solve the company's problems. The author recommends targeting your positioning around a specific type of company and using a consultative interview approach that diagnoses the company's needs, then structures answers around Process, Situation, Action, and Result. You can also stand out by creating concrete proof of how you would solve a company's problems, such as one candidate who built an ROI calculator for a final interview and had it shared across the company.

IS GOOGLE TRENDS DATA INACCURATE?

Unrelated Google Trends queries consistently rank Cheyenne, Wyoming first, raising questions about whether non-human traffic is skewing search data.

SAMSUNG TV BUYING JOURNEY

A graphic showing a non-linear buying journey of a Samsung TV across channels and why open-web behavior matters.

MAKE PRODUCT NAMES VERY SPECIFIC

Use-specific descriptions help shoppers picture themselves using a product, which raises how useful it seems by 9.7% and purchase intent by up to 9.5%.

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CONVENIENCE OR DISCOVERY: WHICH MISSION WILL YOUR STORE SERVE?

AI is splitting physical retail into two distinct missions. Convenience stores should reduce friction with easy navigation and reactive service. Discovery stores should drive dwell time through immersive experiences and specialized associates. More than 90% of consumers prioritize locations that fit their daily routines, while 78% cite product testing and 76% cite product guidance as drivers of discovery visits.

WORKERS ARE WARMING UP TO AI - BUT GEN Z REMAINS SKEPTICAL

AI confidence is growing across the workforce, with 53% of US workers saying AI makes them more efficient. Gen Z remains more hesitant. Only 38% plan to build AI skills in the next 6 months, while 52% are nervous about AI's impact on their jobs. At the same time, AI literacy is becoming more valuable in the workplace. LinkedIn finds it is associated with stronger hiring and promotion outcomes for Gen Z.

AUDIT IF YOUR FAQ IS DISCOVERABLE BY SEARCH ENGINES AND LLMS

FAQs can improve visibility in search and AI systems only if the content is present in the page source when it loads. Many FAQ components hide their text until a user clicks to expand them, which means search engines and LLMs may not access the content by default. Use Chrome DevTools to check whether FAQ text remains discoverable after a page reload.

CHATGPT READS YOUR YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION, NOT YOUR TRANSCRIPT

Treat YouTube descriptions like landing pages for AI search. ChatGPT can retrieve a video's title, metadata, and full description, but not its transcript. That makes the description a key source for understanding the video. Include relevant terms and clear context. Use structured sections and timecodes so ChatGPT can understand what the video covers and where specific topics appear.

THERE IS NO AEO ALGORITHM TO HACK

AEO is not an SEO ranking game with factors to reverse engineer. AI visibility depends on whether a brand is clearly associated with a category and supported by credible evidence. Fix positioning gaps and answer real buyer questions. Build comparison content that helps buyers evaluate vendors. Strengthen third-party corroboration instead of manufacturing mentions. Then track commercial prompts and connect AI visibility to buyer conversations and pipeline, not just brand mentions.

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ALMOST NOBODY GETS XML SITEMAPS RIGHT

XML sitemaps tell search engines which URLs a site wants in search results. They should contain canonical, working URLs that the site wants indexed. Google attempts to crawl each URL as listed, so redirects, errors, noindex pages, or conflicting canonicals make the sitemap less useful and can waste crawl activity. Missing or repeated ‘lastmod' dates can be acceptable. Fields like ‘priority' and ‘changefreq' are ignored by Google.

DOES REDDIT HAVE AN ASTROTURFING PROBLEM?

Reddit is often treated as a source of unbiased product advice. However, some buying recommendations are unusually concentrated among a small group of accounts. The top 5% of brand-heavy accounts produced 11.3% of knife recommendations, versus 7.9% expected by chance. For three brands, that share reached 20% to 31%. This could indicate astroturfing, where paid accounts create the appearance of organic recommendations, but their histories looked more like genuine fans.

THE USEFULNESS OF ATTRIBUTION FOR AI SEARCH

AI is making click-based attribution less useful as discovery increasingly happens through AI answers that never generate a website visit. Treat attribution as one imperfect signal rather than a definitive measure of channel value. Triangulate exposure, behavioral, and business metrics such as AI Share of Voice and CRM data. Use incrementality testing where possible to measure causal impact, especially for activities that attribution cannot capture.

DISSECTING WHY CANVA IS PARTNERING WITH JIO

Canva is using Jio's 524.4M customers to tackle a freemium problem. Many casual users get enough value from Free to justify paying for Pro. Bundling Pro with Jio plans lets users experience premium features without making a separate purchase. The real test is what happens after the bundle ends. Canva needs to see whether users build habits around Pro and become willing to pay for it.

WENDY'S DROPS AN EMO ALBUM: “SONGS TO LISTEN TO IN A WENDY'S PARKING LOT”

Wendy's dropped a full emo EP for late-night food runs.

THE "ARE YOU STILL THAT PERSON?" TRICK

Use identity-based emails to re-engage churned customers and dead leads.

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CHATGPT ADS SEEM TO LIFT ORGANIC TRAFFIC. IS PAYING TO BE FOUND THE FUTURE OF AI SEARCH?

ChatGPT ads appear to coincide with higher organic ChatGPT traffic, but some of that lift may come from ad clicks being misclassified as organic referrals in GA4. OpenAI says ads don't influence its answers, and there is no public study proving whether ads affect organic visibility. It recommends tagging ad URLs, auditing ‘oppref' traffic, running holdout tests, and tracking organic mentions separately from traffic.

CLIPPING 101: INSIDE THE CLIPPING ECONOMY

Clipping is emerging as a performance-based distribution model where brands pay networks of creators to turn existing content into short-form clips and only pay when posts reach verified view thresholds. The model has gained traction in entertainment, where brands have large libraries of inherently watchable content, while also serving as a way to test creative before putting paid spend behind the best-performing clips.

HOW TO USE CUSTOMER LANGUAGE FOR POWERFUL MARKETING COPY

Pull customer language from 15 to 20 recent reviews, support tickets, sales calls, Google Ads search terms, and AI conversations. Tag phrases that repeat and use them in headlines, CTAs, ads, service pages, and FAQs. For AI visibility, ask prospects who found you through ChatGPT or Perplexity to share their conversations, including follow-up questions and competitor comparisons. Start by changing one headline or CTA, measure results after 30 days, then repeat quarterly.

HOW LONG SHOULD YOUR FREE TRIAL BE?

Test trial length based on how quickly users experience value, how often they need to return, and the cost of free access. Compare short trials against 5-9, 10-16, and 17-32-day options within each subscription plan, tracking conversion and first renewal separately. For monthly plans, test 10-16 days rather than assuming longer is better. AI apps should also factor in per-user inference costs, while regional and category differences can justify different trial lengths.

AMAZON WILL LET SELLERS MANAGE WALMART, EBAY, SHOPIFY, AND TIKTOK SALES FROM THEIR AMAZON DASHBOARDS

Amazon is rolling out free multichannel selling tools that let US sellers manage Walmart, eBay, Shopify, and TikTok sales from Seller Central. Sellers can connect accounts, sync listings, view orders, and fulfill purchases across channels. Amazon says it will not use rival-platform data for other purposes.

HOW X'S RANKING ALGORITHM WORKS

X's ranking algorithm favors posts that people are likely to share, reply to, or quote rather than simply like. A copy link share carries 40X the weight of a like, while replies and quotes each carry 10X the weight. Posts also need to stay focused on a clear topic to reach relevant nonfollowers, and negative actions such as mutes and reports carry heavy penalties. The algorithm also reduces the value of repeated posts from the same author and stops considering posts after 48 hours. Posting less often and creating highly shareable content can improve reach.

AI MARKETING IS MOVING INTO THE DATA PLATFORM

Agentic CDPs bring AI directly into governed customer data, giving agents the context needed to build audiences and design campaigns. Unlike traditional CDPs that sync copies of data into marketing tools, they connect directly to the governed data platform and combine customer behavior with real-time signals and business goals. The use cases build over time, from natural-language data queries to agent-built campaigns and continuous engagement.

THE STACK LADDER: WHAT COMPANIES RUN AT 10, 50, 200, 1,000, AND 10,000 PEOPLE

Startups don't necessarily switch to enterprise software as they grow. Among Y Combinator companies with 1 to 1,000 employees, the same category leaders dominate at most company sizes. HubSpot leads CRM at every size, while Cloudflare leads hosting, including among Fortune 500 companies. Marketo and Adobe Experience Manager appear only among Fortune 500 companies. What changes with headcount is adoption. CRM usage rises from 7% of the smallest startups' homepages to 42% among companies with 201 - 1,000 employees.

FISHWIFE SARDINES JUST ANNOUNCED THE QUIRKIEST COLLAB

Dieux and Fishwife collaborated on reusable silicone eye patches featuring Fishwife's signature fish illustrations, packaged to look like a tin of fish.

27 REAL SUBJECT LINE EXAMPLES FOR EVERY TYPE OF MEDIA PITCH

Subject lines with key details in the first 3 words had a 46% open rate vs. 38% when it appeared in word 7 or later.

OPENAI BOTS MEDDLED WITH MULTIPLE US GOVERNMENT AGENCY SITES

OpenAI said its AI agents improperly interacted with dozens of government and public agency websites, including the SEC and Census Bureau.

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61 MILLION CONSUMERS ASK AI WHAT TO BUY. THEN THEY BUY IT ON AMAZON

23% of US consumers, or roughly 61 million people, now start retail research with AI. Average AI-assisted spending rose 17% from $889 in June to $1,039 in August. Yet 60% of AI-assisted purchases still close on Amazon. In a controlled test, 40% of consumers chose a marketplace even when told other retailers offered the same product, price, shipping, and returns.

INSIDE MCDONALD'S NEW MARKETING MODEL AS IT ENTERS MEDIA NETWORK FRAY

McDonald's is piloting a media network across 450 US company-owned restaurants, selling ad space on its app, kiosks, and menu boards, with the goal of building a billion-dollar business. Its marketing is shifting to fewer, bigger global campaigns built on its own IP. It is roughly doubling spending on long-running programs about its brand and food quality while cutting short-term promotions.