Amazon's text shopping bot now runs ads

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Amazon's text shopping assistant is a new ad spot for you LINK

• Amazon's Alexa Shopping assistant now takes orders by text message, and the conversation thread where those orders get placed will show ads.
• Sponsored Products will appear inside the chats, free to advertisers for now, while purchases the agent finishes on its own stay ad-free; the texting option went live today for a small, invite-only group of U.S. customers.
• Amazon plans to open the feature to millions more over the coming weeks, and once in, customers link a phone number, message the "Alexa Shopping" contact to search and reorder, or switch on auto-buy to let the agent purchase at a target price.

Instagram brings Edits video editing to your Mac LINK

• Instagram has released a Mac version of Edits, its free short-form video editing app, which runs only on computers with Apple Silicon chips from the M1 onward and requires an Instagram account to sign in.
• The desktop app adds a multi-track timeline, keyframes, audio waveforms and colour wheels, plus imported fonts and LUTs, and works with AI agents through the Model Context Protocol, letting creators connect assistants such as Meta's Muse to handle parts of the edit.
• Finished videos can be posted straight to Instagram with tags and location, or exported in vertical or horizontal formats up to 4K without a watermark, though editing the same project across phone and Mac is not yet possible and there is no Windows version.

Celebrities still beat creators for your holiday ads LINK

• Despite giving creators bigger budgets and roles all year, brands still turned to celebrities for their holiday advertising, with Sephora using Seth Rogen, Gucci bringing in Mariah Carey and John Lewis casting Dame Kristin Scott Thomas.
• Kantar's Lynne Deason told Digiday that brands lean on celebrity fame because the holiday audience is so broad, while creators often command attention concentrated around one specific interest or community rather than across the whole room.
• The split is getting harder to hold, as Marc Jacobs gave creator Ashtin Earle equal billing with traditional names and Anthropologie handed its holiday story to comedian Pooja Tripathi for a micro-series spread across Instagram, TikTok and more.

AI search shows your brand but won't recommend it LINK

• New research finds that AI search tools regularly name brands in their answers but rarely tell buyers to actually pursue them, a gap marketers miss when they track visibility alone.
• Across 8,392 responses to 300 non-branded buying prompts on ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Mode, and AI Overviews, models named a brand in nearly every answer but directly recommended one less than half the time.
• Positive sentiment did not signal a recommendation either: models described 55.7% of brand mentions positively, yet 72.9% of those positive mentions came without a direct recommendation, often just listing the brand as an option.

Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash gives you longer AI clips LINK

• Google has made Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, its AI video model, generally available, letting users create clips up to 15 seconds long in one go, up from the earlier 10-second limit.
• The model now costs about $0.07 per second of 720p video through the Gemini API, a 30% drop from $0.10 a second in June, and lets people edit a clip over several chat turns.
• Faces, clothes, packaging text and brand colours stay more consistent across camera angles, and in Google DeepMind's own tests, people preferred version 1.2 over 1.1 for visual consistency 62% of the time.

Strategies & Tactics

> CPC Guide: How to Reduce Cost Per Click on Social Ads: Lower your cost per click by hooking viewers in two seconds, rotating ad formats, tightening targeting, and matching landing pages to ads.

> Marketing Automation Sequences That Drive Customer Retention and Expansion: Build automation sequences triggered by customer behavior, sending onboarding, usage tips, and upgrade offers to keep users active and grow accounts.

> Better prompts start before the prompt: Define clear requirements with proven software practices like user stories before prompting AI, because fast code generation wastes effort if it misses business needs.

> Is your affiliate program showing up too late?: Expand affiliate programs beyond coupon sites to editorial publishers and creators, keeping product data clean so AI assistants recommend the brand to new shoppers earlier.

> What is RAG in AI? A plain-English guide for marketers: RAG lets AI assistants pull from your live content when generating answers, so clear, current, well-structured pages improve your chances of being cited.

> What I learned about creator marketing from 60+ brand partnerships: Treat creators as trusted outside voices who amplify your message authentically, choosing people who genuinely like your product and reusing their content everywhere.

Other news you might like

• ChatGPT Ads bidding options are changing on November 9th LINK

• Visa tested 22 AI models as shoppers, and they failed 42.8% of the time LINK

• Google Expands Business Messaging To Google Maps On iOS & Android LINK

• More Than Half of Marketers Have No Clear Read on UGC Creator ROI, Survey Finds LINK

• TikTok quietly launches a standalone TikTok Shop app LINK

• Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse as AI shopping agents challenge retail ads LINK

Trending tools

Ami AI: analyzes your website to identify high-converting buyers, then plans, runs, and self-corrects outbound outreach campaigns around your lead goals automatically. LINK

Spira Maxima: turns scripts, photos, or recordings into finished social videos with presenters, motion graphics, B-roll, captions, and music, ready to publish. LINK

Naoma AI Demo Agent V2: an AI sales agent that runs interactive product demos, answers prospect questions, qualifies leads, books meetings, and syncs sessions to your CRM LINK

Onepin: a QA layer for AI voiceover that fixes mispronounced names, prices, and dates across 30+ voice engines without re-rendering takes. LINK

Beam: streams individual windows from a remote Mac as native local apps, each with its own Dock icon and ⌘Tab slot over an encrypted connection. LINK

Prefer: monitors how AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity answer questions in your category, revealing where you appear and competitors win. LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!