Shoppers blame TikTok Shop for fraud

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🛒 Shoppers blame TikTok Shop most for marketplace fraud

🤖 OpenAI can cut your ads once you're a rival

📱 Mosseri says a chronological feed would flood your feed with brands

🛍️ Shipt's new AI assistant builds shoppers' carts for them

📊 Google's Meridian GeoX could make your geo tests 31% cheaper

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

🛒 Shoppers blame TikTok Shop most for marketplace fraud LINK

A BrandShield survey of 1,029 United States adults found that shoppers named TikTok Shop more than eBay, Craigslist, Etsy or Poshmark as the marketplace where they ran into a scam or counterfeit purchase.

Among marketplace users, 34.5% reported fraud, and of those, 34.7% pointed to TikTok Shop, followed by eBay at 28.4% and Craigslist at 19.9%, though the ranking is not adjusted for how many people shopped on each platform.

TikTok Shop reached $15.82 billion in United States e-commerce sales during 2025, growing 108% year over year and holding an 18.2% share of the social commerce market, with EMARKETER projecting $23.41 billion in 2026.

🤖 OpenAI can cut your ads once you're a rival LINK

OpenAI has quietly stopped approving ChatGPT ads for image- and audio-generating products that compete with features it now ships itself, a policy it never announced and that surfaced only when advertisers' campaigns stopped clearing review.

The change hit Adobe, which could no longer promote its Firefly image tool, while ads for video-generation tools like Runway still cleared, since OpenAI had just launched ChatGPT Images 2.5 and ChatGPT Live voice but not video.

Several hundred advertisers across image and audio generation, video editing, design tooling, transcription, dubbing and stock libraries sit in the blast radius, with access to the largest consumer AI interface now tied to a roadmap they cannot see.

📱 Mosseri says a chronological feed would flood your feed with brands LINK

Instagram's chief executive, Adam Mosseri, says that switching off the app's algorithm would leave users seeing more content from brands and companies, spending less time on the platform, and finding friends and creators drowned out.

Mosseri argues a reverse chronological feed would push people to post more often, and since brands post more than creators, who post more than friends, those who can afford frequent posting would gain the most reach.

The comments follow Australian plans, announced by prime minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday, to require platforms to let users choose between an algorithm-recommended feed or a reverse chronological feed of pages they follow.

🛍️ Shipt's new AI assistant builds shoppers' carts for them LINK

Shipt, the same-day delivery platform owned by Target, launched a new tool called "Ask Shipt" that turns customer prompts into customized ready-to-buy carts, joining the growing list of delivery apps adding AI assistants.

Users can ask the assistant to build a cart for a tailgate for 25 people, request meal ideas within a budget such as a weeknight dinner for a family of five under $35, or upload a photo of a dish to add its ingredients.

Shipt announced the launch on Wednesday, and Ask Shipt is available now in the Shipt app and on Shipt.com, following recent AI features on Target.com like photo search and customer review summaries.

📊 Google's Meridian GeoX could make your geo tests 31% cheaper LINK

Google made Meridian GeoX, its free open-source tool for running geographic advertising experiments where some regions see ads and others do not, generally available today, promising design work that runs faster and costs less.

Its product manager said native multicell execution compares several treatments against one shared control group, cutting the need for a separate control per test and saving large advertisers more than 31% versus other open-source options in Google's own benchmarks.

Running on the JAX framework, GeoX cut design generation times by over 94% against other solutions, and its results feed into the Meridian mix model as Bayesian priors while the model nominates which channels would gain most from testing.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> How to create B2B content that buyers keep using: Invest in content buyers return to and share, calculators, templates, benchmarks, that helps them make decisions, since AI makes plain information cheap and clarity scarce.

> Drive Awareness with Video Sequence Ads: Run YouTube ads that show clips in a set order to build brand awareness, using frequency caps and step-by-step transitions to guide viewers through a story.

> How YouTube’s Algorithm Can Find Your Customers for Free: Create content that helps viewers rather than pitches customers, letting YouTube's recommendation AI distribute it free and build trust that eventually drives sales.

> Google’s target bidding shake-up: Why PPC marketers have been here before: Google's target bidding now aims for your set cost-per-conversion rather than beating it, so match strategy to goals and gradually lower targets to improve efficiency.

> How to advertise on ChatGPT: A practical guide based on our first 97,000 impressions: Explains how to run ChatGPT ads by targeting conversational intent and setting up conversion tracking first, while warning that ad-supported plans may exclude your best prospects.

> How brands can use creators to improve visibility in AI search: Brands are scripting videos from niche expert creators to answer specific chatbot questions, boosting the odds AI search tools cite and recommend them.

Other news you might like

• ChatGPT Sites Makes Website Building Feel Like Editing A DocLINK

• Ad spend forecasts revised upward as more ad dollars are handled by AI toolsLINK

• Google Ranking Factors Expert Survey 2026LINK

• Microsoft says AI Max testers gained 8% more conversionsLINK

• Snap CEO discusses ad development and AILINK

• TikTok Expands Ad Placements Across Europe, Launches Newsletter to Grow LivestreamingLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Soloop: an agentic system playing AI CEO, CTO, and CMO so solo founders can plan, build, and sell without hiring a teamLINK

Clara AI SDR: engages and qualifies inbound website visitors in real time, handles objections, books meetings, and syncs with your CRM around the clockLINK

Tines 3B: a secure, unified platform for building and running your team's automations, apps, and AI agents in one placeLINK

Pebbles Ai: consolidates 10+ go-to-market tools into one neurosymbolic AI platform for building strategies, content, campaigns, and sales assets that close deals.LINK

getcito-worlds-first-open-source-aio-aeo-or-geo-tool: an open-source tool that optimizes content for AI search engines and tracks a brand's visibility across generative AI platforms.LINK

warmbly: an open-source platform that helps warm up email accounts and manage cold outreach campaigns to improve deliverability.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!