TikTok now lets you buy without leaving

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🛒 TikTok now lets shoppers buy without leaving the app

👗 ChatGPT can now let shoppers try on your products

🤝 How Chili's and Disney turn creators into bigger results

📲 TikTok just opened its ad network to your campaigns

🎯 Reddit just upgraded its lead-gen tools for you

Plus: 💡 6 strategies & tactics, 🎁 7 more stories you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

🛒 TikTok now lets shoppers buy without leaving the app LINK

TikTok has rolled out "Buy Direct," a one-click checkout tool that lets users finish a purchase from a brand straight from the For You feed, alongside a conversational AI "Shopping Assistant," keeping the whole shopping journey inside the app.

The Shopping Assistant works as an AI agent that remembers a user's needs across a chat and pulls up product details, shipping, sizing, and availability, while both tools were built with commerce and payment partners including Salesforce, Shopify and Stripe.

The features build on TikTok Shop, which launched in the U.S. in 2023 and brought in an estimated $15.8 billion in U.S. sales in 2025, about 18% of all U.S. social commerce, according to eMarketer.

👗 ChatGPT can now let shoppers try on your products LINK

OpenAI has rolled out virtual try-on worldwide in ChatGPT Shopping, letting people upload a selfie or full-body photo to see themselves wearing clothes and accessories found through the assistant.

A Try on button sits next to eligible products, and users can also upload a screenshot of an item they spot elsewhere; ChatGPT Images generates the picture, and a reference photo can be saved for later.

OpenAI warns the feature does not guarantee fit or sizing and tells users to check merchant measurements and return policies, while a new Favorites option saves products and try-on images into folders in the ChatGPT Library.

🤝 How Chili's and Disney turn creators into bigger results LINK

At Advertising Week New York, executives from Chili's, Disney and Alaska Airlines described how creators have moved to the center of their marketing, with long-term deals producing stronger sales and engagement than traditional campaigns.

Chili's said influencer partnerships lifted the Triple Dipper from 7% of total sales to 15% of the category, and a mukbang post pairing Lizzo with creator Keila Pacheco outperformed its polished video spot.

Disney now sees creator-led work make up more than 40% of assets in a media campaign, up from under 10% five years ago, while brands still wrestle with measuring online buzz and sentiment beyond paid views.

📲 TikTok just opened its ad network to your campaigns LINK

TikTok opened its ad network, called TTAN, to advertisers in the United States, letting campaigns run beyond the app itself and reach audiences across a premium network of just under 400,000 applications worldwide.

The product, formerly named TikTok Pangle, is built into TikTok Ads Manager and carries brand safety and placement controls, though the company earlier described the network as reaching more than 400,000 apps rather than the current "nearly" figure.

TTAN arrived alongside other AI advertising tools unveiled today at Advertising Week New York 2026, including in-app checkout and a shopping assistant, but most of the products have no start dates, so when any advertiser gets access stays unknown.

🎯 Reddit just upgraded its lead-gen tools for you LINK

Reddit has rolled out new Lead Generation features that let advertisers send prospects to forms or landing pages and route lead data into their CRM systems for follow-up.

The tools include Max campaigns that optimize settings and creative for each impression, plus in-market audiences that helped advertisers improve their cost per acquisition by nearly 7% over other first-party targeting.

Integrations with partners such as Bombora, Demandbase, and HubSpot, now in open beta, connect campaigns to attribution and reporting, while Pixel and Conversions API support is planned for later this year.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> How to strengthen your brand story to improve AEO visibility: Standardize your brand story across every website, bio, and third-party mention so AI answer engines, which favor consistent messaging, actually cite and surface your company.

> Claude Design: How to Create On-Brand Visuals With AI: Build a reusable design system in Claude Design so the AI arranges on-brand slides, websites, and animations that match your brand without a designer.

> Meta Sequenced Events: Optimize for Qualified Website Leads: Use Meta's Sequenced Events to optimize ads for leads who complete a second, higher-value action, improving lead quality if you have enough conversion volume.

> Guardrails for Google Ads AI: Tell Google Ads AI who to avoid using text guidelines and asset exclusions, since negative keywords alone miss intent-driven searches.

> How to plan 2027 when traffic is down and AI won't attribute: Plan 2027 around brand mentions and citations that happen before any site visit, since two-thirds of searches now end without a click.

> How to Record Customer Testimonial Videos on a Smartphone: Guide for Small Marketing Teams: Build each smartphone testimonial around one customer's specific problem and result, answering the exact objection your buyers raise before deciding.

Other news you might like

• Google changes view-through conversion reporting for Demand Gen Display adsLINK

• Instagram adds Threads sharing sticker for StoriesLINK

• Taboola survey: 81% of advertisers keep recycling audiences as budgets riseLINK

• Uber Eats ads lifted in-store sales 5% among exposed eaters, Uber saysLINK

• Misuse of AI is brands’ top reputational threat, new survey saysLINK

• TrafficGuard finds up to 34% of clicks on some ChatGPT ads were invalidLINK

• Google AI Overviews cut self-ranking listicle citations 38%, Lily Ray findsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Harden: a free local security tool that inspects AI coding agent tool calls before they run, keeping your repo and output on your machine.LINK

Pexo: an AI video agent that creates videos from natural conversation, letting you describe ideas without needing technical video-editing skills.LINK

The GTM Co-Founder: open-source, MIT-licensed skills that learn your product and market, guiding dev-tool founders through a prioritized roadmap for positioning, launch, and pricing.LINK

Naise AI: automates marketing for founders and lean teams, handling brand-consistent content, influencer vetting, journalist outreach, and native social scheduling to launch campaigns fast.LINK

Outcome: turns your videos, articles, and frameworks into personalized action plans, scores, and audits for each viewer while growing your email list.LINK

Tadata: an AI assistant in Slack that connects to your tools, prepares briefings, and handles daily prep work for your team.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!