Australia could let users turn off feeds

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

📱 Australia could let your audience turn off algorithmic feeds

🔍 Google's EU search changes could reshape your local traffic

👔 Brands are putting creators in your C-suite this Q4

🤖 Bots are pushing your retargeting spend to social and retail media

Plus: 💡 6 strategies & tactics, 🎁 6 other news you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

📱 Australia could let your audience turn off algorithmic feeds LINK

Australia is set to introduce a draft law this week that would let people switch off the social media algorithms that shape their personalized recommendations, Communications Minister Anika Wells said yesterday.

The legislation, called a "digital duty of care," would require companies like Meta to give users the choice of turning off tailored feeds, though Wells noted many Australians value the algorithm and will keep it.

Australia already barred children from social media platforms in December, yet data last month showed that Australians younger than 16 were increasing their use of apps such as Instagram and TikTok despite the ban.

🔍 Google's EU search changes could reshape your local traffic LINK

Google has begun applying its Digital Markets Act changes to Search in Europe, a move it calls the "largest reduction in quality" in the 29-year history of the search engine, which could shift local traffic patterns.

The revamped results favor vertical search services such as Expedia or Booking.com, placing one specialized engine at the top, two more below, and a carousel of hotels, airlines and restaurants with real-time prices stripped out.

In Google's 2024 tests, users felt less satisfied and took longer to find hotels, while hotels lost more than 10% of traffic, affecting hundreds of thousands of European hotels, and intermediary sites stayed flat.

👔 Brands are putting creators in your C-suite this Q4 LINK

Brands are set to hand creators C-suite roles this Q4, following the pattern eyeglass brand Blenders started with mega creator Jordan "The Stallion" Howlett, treating the move as real collaboration rather than a PR stunt.

More young, nimble brands are expected to adopt this method in the final quarter, along with companies hoping to pull ahead in the crowded and turbulent field of creator marketing.

The shift comes as the creator economy is expected to reach half a trillion dollars next year, with creators moving into Hollywood through films like Obsession and Backrooms and Disney planning its first two-day creator event in mid-September.

🤖 Bots are pushing your retargeting spend to social and retail media LINK

Bot traffic is corrupting retargeting campaigns, driving some advertisers to move their media budgets out of programmatic and into social platforms and retail media instead, according to agency buyers who spoke to Digiday.

Media agency GoFish reported its e-commerce clients saw bot traffic rise 80% year-on-year, funneling ad spend toward fake "users," spiking costs-per-acquisition, and prompting narrower retargeting parameters that raised the average CPM by 20%.

AI agents worsen the problem by adding items to carts and signing up to newsletters, fooling filters built to catch bots that visit and bounce, while privacy updates and data opt-outs have also cut retargeting scale.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> How to Get AI to Recommend Your Business: Publish original content with personal stories and proprietary data in self-contained, question-and-answer chunks so AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite and recommend your business.

> Pinterest offers advice on creating effective shopping promotions: Set up a Pinterest shopfront and product Pins before running ads, then use its trend and targeting tools to reach holiday shoppers.

> How much does AEO cost? Pricing by agency, tools, and software: AEO ("answer engine optimization," getting your brand cited in AI answers) costs from about $30 a month for self-run monitoring to over $15,000 for full-service agencies, depending on how much work you outsource.

> Make Posteingänge Sexy Again: 9 Ingredients for an Email Readers Want to Open: Write newsletters as personal correspondence, using specific odd details, your own opinions, and replies to readers, because voice emerges when you stop editing yourself out.

> 5 lessons for brands who want to win the 2026 holiday season, from the advertisers already doing it: Start holiday TV campaigns in October and pair them with social ads, since competition for premium ad slots peaks early and reused creative dominates.

> How to give away free product and make money doing it: Treat free AI product usage as acquisition spend judged on payback, letting users experience the value firsthand before paying converts them cheaply.

Other news you might like

• 41% of Millennials Use ChatGPT for Product DiscoveryLINK

• YouTube Appears in 53% of Google AI Overviews for Vitamin and Supplement SearchesLINK

• AI Overviews may be affecting Shopping ad CTR and impressionsLINK

• Threads Rebuilds Creator Insights Dashboard With Plain-Language Performance SummariesLINK

• Some companies are using ads to influence AI agentsLINK

• Amazon opens B2B deals to 11 million business accounts in 10 marketsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Adomate: creates branded ad concepts at scale using your Meta account data, ad library, and Trustpilot and Amazon reviews, with fully traceable workflowsLINK

AI Search Console: monitors how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other AI engines mention your brand, tracking prompts, citations, competitors, and visibility trends in one dashboard.LINK

Migma AI: builds campaign-ready marketing emails in seconds, helping teams skip manual design work and launch outreach faster without technical setupLINK

Goose Ads Remixer: analyzes top-performing ads in your niche and generates fresh variations from your logo, product images, and messaging within minutesLINK

Fedica 2.0: schedule posts across 14 social platforms and analyze your audience with demographics, city-level location, bot detection, and engagement metrics.LINK

seo: provides 70+ SEO audit tools via a local CLI and MCP server using your own crawl, Search Console, and GA4 data.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!