John Challis

Google releases more Agentic Shopping tools: Direct Offers allow customers to shop and buy within AI Mode. UCP enables Google Pay checkout (PayPal coming soon). Branded agents using Merchant Center. #Shopify #Google #Etsy #Ecommerce https://lnkd.in/ehjapxFv

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Perplexity’s decision to STOP testing advertising is more than a revenue story I think... It's a positioning statement. (https://lnkd.in/eYNGPXEG) According to recent reports like Search Engine Land, Perplexity recently chose to move away from ads out of concern that even clearly labeled sponsorships could erode user trust. In a market where AI tools are becoming the front door to information, that concern is not trivial. I've always felt that when answers are generated rather than linked, the line between relevance and revenue can blur quickly. Time and time again we've all watched what happens when platforms scale through advertising... The model works and it funds growth, but it also shifts incentives. Then the product slowly optimizes for impressions rather than integrity. Finally, over time, users feel that shift, even if they can't articulate it. In my opinion, this is a long game for them. They may be sacrificing short term monetization, but in return they will strengthen brand equity in a category where neutrality is everything. What do you think?

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Will agentic commerce impact social media? Might be too early to tell... From our Paid Social Media discussion, panelists described the current environment for agentic commerce and social platforms... ➡️ Agentic commerce was broadly acknowledged but not yet impacting near term paid social allocations. ➡️ In B2B, adoption is limited and viewed as premature. More broadly, the prevailing view is that paid social will remain critical in building awareness, trust, and desire even if some transactions migrate to AI surfaces. ➡️ Rather than displacing paid social, agentic commerce is expected to operate alongside existing paid media, compressing the path to purchase but not eliminating the need for upper and mid funnel investment. Too early? Not early enough? Are agencies creating a fine tuned approach to scale agentic alongside social?

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Obsession with short-term metrics is why CAC keeps climbing B2B’s addiction to quick wins -- not every webinar attendee is an MQL -- is bleeding budgets and driving CAC through the roof. Fixation on short-term tactics ignores B2B's primary source of competitive advantage: brand trust. Strong brands make buyers choose you before they even click. They slash CAC, speed up sales cycles, and increase ROI across every demand gen campaign. Develop a marketing strategy that builds a brand that sells itself (not one that optimizes clicks).

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Commerce media is breaking out of the enterprise - and that’s a big signal for SMB growth. This week, PayPal announced Ads Manager, opening the door for tens of millions of small businesses to participate in the high-margin advertising model that has fueled growth for giants like Amazon and Walmart. For years, Retail Media Networks (RMNs) were the domain of big-box retailers - monetizing their sites and apps by selling ad space to brands. Today, that model has evolved into Commerce Media Networks (CMNs): any commerce-driven platform, including SMB storefronts, can now monetize shopper intent and transaction data. For SMBs, this is a strategic shift: 💲 New revenue streams: Turn your site traffic into advertising income without building your own ad tech. 👍 Low technical barrier: PayPal makes it simple - just add a small plug-in (no heavy coding required) and its engine handles ad targeting and delivery. ⛽ Fuel for reinvestment: Extra ad income can fund marketing, inventory expansion, or hiring, which are crucial levers in competitive markets. This isn’t just a product launch, it’s a signal that commerce media is decentralizing. Thousands of SMBs could soon become high-intent ad channels, reshaping how brands reach buyers. At Crosslists Data, we help marketers and platforms stay ahead of shifts like this by pinpointing newly formed and fast-growing SMBs - the companies most likely to adopt emerging revenue models like commerce media. Knowing who’s just getting started lets you reach them at the exact moment they’re deciding how to grow. 💡 The takeaway: Commerce media is no longer just for the giants. The brands that recognize and connect with SMBs early - before these new ad channels mature - will have a strategic edge. #CommerceMediaNetworks #PayPal #SMB #AdsManager

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Why Most Brands Misjudge Affiliate Marketing 🔥 Affiliate marketing isn’t “low-funnel” or “last-click only” anymore — and according to a VP of Performance Marketing at Penske Media, most brands are still thinking about it all wrong. For the last 20+ years, the perception hasn’t kept up with the reality: Affiliate is now one of the most scalable, upper-funnel AND revenue-driving channels — powered by premium publishers and high-intent audiences. 💡 If you’re still treating affiliate like a discount channel, you’re leaving serious growth on the table. 👉 Watch the full episode on YouTube with Scott Ginsberg 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gSjWn7P8

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A #CreditUnion client was struggling to show leadership that their Digital Ads campaigns were delivering results. We help them refocus by setting up a report to look at: ✅ Leads by channel ✅ Funded loans per Channel ✅ Monthly trends for funded deals Their CMO could clearly show there team: - Which channels were most effective. - How digital optimization impacted their ROI. - Why increasing the budget was the fastest path to reaching company goals.

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✅🖥️ Mike Shields / Substack (3/3): “How does this jibe with what everyone was telling me last week, about how 50, 60, or 70% of their deals are now ‘programmatic?” Well, it sort of comes down to hair-splitting ad tech definitions (as it often does) - or what counts as programmatic or not. The more you push buyers and sellers, the more you realize that the CTV ad market is far from open and dynamic (like say the display or social worlds). Most TV business is still through direct deals (with many negotiated during - yes - the upfronts). These deals may be booked using ad technology, and may employ tactics such as private marketplaces or programmatic guaranteed - but they are ‘programmatic’ with lots of guardrails. And they are still only available to the high-paying few. “Unlike other media, say display, the concentration of supply in CTV is phenomenal,” said Tatari’s CEO. “90 percent of all of our streaming impressions placed for brands or agencies come from the same top 10 publishers. It is what you and I watch. There is no long tail. It’s a big head with even a very small torso.” It may explain why connected TV ad growth has been somewhat stagnant, despite all the recent hype. By Tatari’s estimation, the CTV market in the US is $30B per year (it should be noted, he is not counting YouTube - which is highly debatable). He’s not far off from eMarketer’s latest forecast. “About half of that today is direct transactions,” the CEO said. “The other half is through programmatic biddable, $15B. And probably half of it is fraud or low-quality inventory. It’s really only $7B or $8B of premium inventory. This is kind of, again, what we talk about in the press every day…it’s where we see a lot of other companies truly hanging their hat on. But they’re ignoring the other $15B.” Why are there so many ad tech middlemen chasing after whatever percentage is available? Well, that’s because they can’t get access to the top stuff, but they still want the high CPMs and premium associations that TV offers - at least that’s Tatari’s take.” ⬇️ #ctv #ott #shoppable #programmatic #avod #vmvpd https://lnkd.in/e7GeNb_d

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Too many ISOs are losing millions - and calling it “just the cost of doing business.”   At Klosebuy, we asked a simple question: What’s the actual cost of merchant attrition and what can we do about it?   A Klosebuy Inc. modeled study with payment industry professionals revealed that losing just 10% of your portfolio can cost $200,000 per 1,000 merchants in replacement cost and lost revenue.   But here’s what is even more important: Attrition is preventable. And retention is a lever most ISOs haven’t optimized.   Klosebuy Inc. gives ISOs a low-lift way to keep more merchants engaged and active, with no POS integration and 10-minute onboarding. Our projections show that reducing attrition by just 30% can deliver up to $174,000 in value per 1,000 merchants over time.   To learn more or see if your market is available DM below or reach out: sales@klosebuy.com   #ISO #merchantservices #payments #fintech #retention #growth #Klosebuy

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The smartest brands try to solve churn after it’s already too late. ⚡ They wait until the subscriber hits cancel. That’s not churn prevention. That’s damage control. The brands that crush retention? They spot the signs before the unsubscribe ever happens. 👀 Low engagement. Skipped logins. Drop in purchase frequency. All of it points to one thing: At-risk customers. ⚠��� With the right AI tools, they can be flagged fast. Then action can be taken. How it works: ➜ Identify behavior patterns with AI. 🤖 ➜ Trigger proactive retention plays. ➜ Tutorials drive product adoption. ➜ Incentives rebuild perceived value. 💎 ➜ Customer service touches humanize the brand. This doesn’t just save a customer. It creates a loyal one.  Big difference. Most businesses don’t do this due to over-focus on acquisition. Retention is where the profit lives. 💰 Want the PDF that breaks this down step by step? It is being given away for free until Monday. To get it: 1️⃣Follow me. 2️⃣Like this post and comment “Membership” below. (I’ll DM the full guide.) If churn prevention is not personalized by Q4… The business is already behind. 🚨

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Let's dig into some consumer spending data - here's what I saw around BFCM: - CNBC reports that 202.9 million shoppers shopped during the 5-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, up from the previous high of 200.4 million in 2023 - Shoppers spent $11.8B on Black Friday - Buy-now-pay-later usage up 8.9% YoY - Shopify reports that its merchants generated a record $14.6 billion in sales over BFCM, up 24% from last year, currency current - showing continued e-commerce growth. - AI-driven traffic to retail sites rose over 800% CX leaders - check out my #BFCM debrief to stay informed. https://okt.to/qnS3TN

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Meta’s Agentic Commerce signals a bigger shift than shopping features. eComm brand owners take note. There was an interesting moment in Meta’s latest earnings call that didn’t get a lot of mainstream attention. Zuckerberg and CFO Chad Heaton discussed “agentic shopping tools”. AI agents that help people find very specific products, remember preferences over time, and eventually make decisions on a user’s behalf. They described these agents as sitting between shoppers and merchants, blending subscriptions, advertising, and commerce into one experience. On the surface, it sounds like another product roadmap update. But if you’ve spent time in eCommerce, it’s hard not to read this as something more structural. Most online shopping today still relies on the same basic behaviour: people browse, compare, get influenced, and then decide. Agentic shopping flips that sequence. Instead of someone scrolling through options, they tell an AI what they want and the AI does the filtering. Not just by keywords, but by memory. Past purchases. Returns. Preferences they’ve never formally written down but have shown through behaviour. Think less “recommendations” and more delegation. “Find me something like the jacket I bought last winter, but lighter, under $250, and not from a brand that took three weeks to ship.” That’s not search. That’s outsourcing the decision. Meta’s interest here makes sense when you zoom out. If an AI agent becomes the place where people decide what to buy, then Meta isn’t just hosting ads anymore. It’s shaping the decision environment itself. Ads, subscriptions, product discovery, and checkout start to blur together. The platform isn’t trying to send traffic somewhere else, it’s trying to mediate the entire journey. In that setup, the value isn’t attention. It’s trust and relevance at the exact moment a decision is being made. This is where things change for eCommerce brands. When the “buyer” is an AI agent, a lot of the tactics we’ve relied on for years start to matter less. Hooks don’t impress an algorithm. Brand storytelling doesn’t override poor fulfilment. A polished funnel doesn’t fix inconsistent sizing or high return rates. Agents evaluate patterns. They learn which brands deliver on time, which ones cause friction, which products get kept. Over time, that becomes the filter through which brands are surfaced. What’s interesting is that this rewards the unglamorous stuff. It rewards brands that are clear on who they’re for, realistic with pricing, operationally sound, and consistent over time. In a world where people stop browsing and start delegating, it’s no longer: “How do we get more people to click?” It becomes: “Would an AI confidently recommend us without needing persuasion?” That’s a harder question. But it’s also a more honest one. And it suggests that the next phase of eCommerce growth will come from being genuinely easy to choose.

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Views don’t equal growth.. What many agencies get wrong isn’t creativity. It’s a measurement. Reach and impressions look good in reports, but they don’t show up on the P&L. Revenue, conversion rates, CAC, and LTV do. Awareness matters when it’s connected to demand. Popularity matters when it drives purchase behavior. If a campaign can’t be tied to a pipeline or sales uplift, it’s a cost, not an investment. The strongest agencies optimise for outcomes, not optics. They let data, not applause, define success. Because growth isn’t measured in views. It’s measured in results. Follow for marketing lessons learned where it actually happens!

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New Tow Center report highlights growing tension in AI-era search: “We’re the providers of information…but Google now wants to be the distributor.” As zero-click answers rise, publishers face renewed pressure to prioritize direct audience relationships. https://lnkd.in/gzxcsgtY

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Retail media isn't a tactic or a channel; it's now a cross-functional business discipline. Skai VP of Product Marketing and Enablement Jason Wolfson sees 2026 as the tipping point where retail media fully matures into a programmatic-grade ecosystem. Get more expert insights on the year ahead: https://okt.to/A4yYF5

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The U.S. Retail Affiliate Marketing Sales Index has been refreshed through March 31, 2025. This detailed tool monitors gross merchandise sales tied to affiliate marketing and provides year-over-year comparisons. Significantly, mobile now represents 43% of affiliate revenue, reflecting a 6% increase. Check out the index to discover monthly revenue patterns, growth factors, and insights categorized by advertiser vertical. Stay competitive in the affiliate marketing landscape!

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