☕️ Shoppers are fact-checking your AI claims on Reddit

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🔎 Shoppers are fact-checking your AI claims on Reddit

🚲 REI's suspected AI ad sparks customer backlash

🚗 Uber just merged rides and delivery into one ad platform

🛒 TikTok Shop now takes 3.5% of every sale

📰 Trusted news may soon outrank your feed content

💡 + 6 strategies & tactics

🎁 + 5 other news & articles you might like

🧰 + 2 trending marketing tools

FROM OUR PARTNER

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• 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.