☕️ Shoppers are fact-checking your AI claims on Reddit

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In today's MarketingShot:

🔎 Shoppers are fact-checking your AI claims on Reddit

🛒 TikTok Shop now takes 3.5% of every sale

🚲 REI's suspected AI ad sparks customer backlash

🚗 Uber just merged rides and delivery into one ad platform

📰 Trusted news may soon outrank your feed content

🎁 + 5 other news you might like

💡 + 6 strategies & tactics

🧰 + 6 trending tools

🔎 Shoppers are fact-checking your AI claims on Reddit LINK

Half of shoppers in the United States now check AI-generated product recommendations on Reddit before they buy, according to Reddit's Path to Purchase 2026 Survey, which polled 13,956 US adults and 6,485 UK adults aged 18 to 65.

In the US, 60% of people trust Reddit to verify AI recommendations over the 53% who trust family or friends, while half of US users come to the platform seeking the honest truth about a product that AI cannot provide.

Reddit ranked first among social platforms for helping people make faster purchase decisions, with 1 in 4 US shoppers buying right after seeing their decision validated, and more than half doing a final check before purchase.

🛒 TikTok Shop now takes 3.5% of every sale LINK

TikTok Shop now charges sellers in its Smart Promotion program a fixed 3.5% fee on their total gross merchandise value during regular periods, replacing an older variable-cost model that most merchants left behind in March 2026.

During major campaign periods like April Stock Up, Memorial Day in May, and Black Friday in November, the rate climbs to 4.5%, and the fee shows up in settlement orders as a separate line item called "Smart Promotion Fee."

In exchange, TikTok Shop guarantees a platform discount rate matching the fee, and it reports that more than 60% of enrolled sellers saw their GMV grow by 20% or more, a claim published without a stated measurement period or method.

🚲 REI's suspected AI ad sparks customer backlash LINK

Outdoor gear retailer REI pulled an Instagram advertisement on Monday, June 22, after social media users accused the brand of using a generative AI image, criticizing the choice given AI's environmental footprint.

The ad showed a woman standing beside a bicycle in a park, but the bike appeared to have too many chains, illegible text, and an extra pair of handlebars growing out of the saddle.

REI promoted the post on Instagram for a full week before deleting it, leaving plenty of time for commenters to fill the comment section with accusations that the image was AI slop.

🚗 Uber just merged rides and delivery into one ad platform LINK

Uber has launched Uber Marketing Manager, a single self-serve advertising platform that combines campaign planning, building, activation, and measurement across both the Uber rides app and Uber Eats under one interface for the first time.

Built on the existing Ads Manager platform made for restaurant partners, the destination connects behavioral data across both apps, letting brands target consumers by inferred intent rather than demographics alone, such as where people go and what they consider ordering.

According to Uber's Q3 2025 Earnings Report, the platform has nearly 200 million monthly active users and records 40 million trips every day, giving the underlying data a breadth that pure delivery or pure mobility networks cannot match on their own.

📰 Trusted news may soon outrank your feed content LINK

The UK government is weighing rules that would force Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to make news from trusted public service outlets like the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 easier to find in feeds and searches.

The plan rests on Ofcom data showing social media is now a main news source for most UK adults and around three-quarters of those aged 16 to 24, with separate research finding four in 10 people met misinformation in one month.

Platforms are likely to push back, having argued before that prominence rules override user choice and disadvantage other creators who would rank below the news providers chosen by the state.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> Why some channels reward breadth and others require commitment: Diminishing-return channels reward spreading budget wide, while machine-learning channels need a committed block past their inefficient warm-up before they pay off.

> GEO is following the same path as early SEO: Manipulative GEO tactics like cloaking and fake reviews will draw AI penalties just as black-hat SEO did, so brands should invest in high-quality content that genuinely answers questions.

> Average Organic Traffic Benchmarks From Real Websites (June 2026): Benchmark your organic traffic against the median for your authority and size, not a single industry average that giant outliers distort.

> The Future of AI and Selling: How One Workflow Closed a $12K Deal: Build a working branded prototype with AI before the first meeting so the prospect feels they would lose something by choosing anyone else.

> How Lipton is using local creators instead of building in-house social teams: Lipton hires local creator teams through an agency to act as on-the-ground social staff, avoiding the cost of building in-house teams in each market.

> Amazon A+ Content trains AI through conversions, not indexing: Amazon A+ Content shapes its COSMO recommendation engine through the search-buy and co-buy pairs that conversions generate, not through text indexing.

Other news you might like

• Beehiiv adds Cloudflare AI Crawl Control so writers can block or allow botsLINK

• LinkedIn Now Lets Marketers Lock In Colors, Fonts, and Voice for AI Ad GenerationLINK

• Google Launches Open Knowledge Format, an AI StandardLINK

• Amazon launches Alexa+ Agentic AdsLINK

• LinkedIn adds collaborative postsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

ProductClank: a performance-based distribution platform connecting early-stage founders with creators and scouts who earn only when real growth milestones are hit.LINK

Insights by Omnia: tracks how AI models perceive your brand, benchmarks competitors, and surfaces actionable content fixes to improve AI search visibility.LINK

Searchad.ai: a chat-based tool for managing Apple Search Ads campaigns across all supported countries, with AI suggestions that require your explicit approval before any changes deploy.LINK

SoMerch: centralizes team merchandise management—from mockups and production to warehousing and EU-wide multi-address delivery—all under one roof.LINK

Thumbmagic: lets creators design and generate YouTube thumbnails quickly without design skills, using visual customization tools to make videos stand out.LINK

Blazly Backlinker: automates the entire backlink acquisition process, from prospect discovery and contact finding to personalized outreach emails, replacing manual spreadsheet workflows.LINK

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