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In this newsletter, you’ll find:
🤖 Open the door to AI shopping agents or lock it? We scored it in three rounds
📢 Google ads tests AI creative insights, expands AI mode ads and introduces new lead terms
👨💻 Tweet of the day
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🤖 Open the door to AI shopping agents or lock it? we scored it in three rounds
The two biggest US retailers just chose opposite sides. On October 22, Retail Dive reported that Walmart will let outside AI shopping agents onto its site with guardrails. Agent Profiles are due by late November, letting shoppers approve each purchase or set a limit such as $50, $100 or $200.
An Agent Gateway beta opens for developers, and updated terms bar agents from receiving card details. Amazon, meanwhile, is working to keep agents from companies including Perplexity and Meta off its site.
Demand is building. Meta’s Muse passed 10 million downloads, more than a quarter of users shop with it and the average purchase tops $200, per Social Media Today. Fraud prevention firm Forter says agent orders on its network grew more than fourfold since August.
So should your store open up or block? Three rounds.
Round 1: Reach
Open stores get shortlisted by agents comparing options for shoppers you’d never reach otherwise. Blocked stores simply aren’t in the answer.
Winner: open.
Round 2: Risk
Agent orders don’t look like human sessions, and fraud rules built for people may flag good orders or miss bad ones. Agents also read your product data and ignore your design, so thin descriptions, unclear shipping and messy pricing get exposed fast.
Winner: block, unless your fraud setup can tell agents apart.
Round 3: Brand control
If your store depends on personalization, a membership model or on-site experience, an agent skipping all of it weakens what makes you different.
Winner: depends on your model. Research-heavy, comparable products lean open. Experience-led brands lean block.
Final score
Open selectively. Allow agents that identify themselves and carry the shopper’s approval, and keep blocking anonymous bots. In my judgment, a full block gives up too much reach in a year when agent shopping is clearly growing, and a fully open door asks too much of fraud rules designed for humans.
Before opening anything
Clean the data an agent compares: stock status, total delivered price, delivery dates and return terms. An agent that can’t confirm those will likely pick a store that states them clearly.
Three questions for your fraud provider
Can you identify agent traffic today?
Which verification methods do you support?
How have agent orders performed on chargebacks so far?
Then check your robots.txt and bot protection settings, so your current policy is a decision you made on purpose.
Together with New Engen
Your next winning ad needs a different voice
Your product solves a real problem. But when every ad makes a promise, buyers need a reason to believe yours.
A qualified expert explaining how it works can give them that reason.
Grapevine, now part of New Engen, creates ads delivered through creator and publisher handles with production managed from brief to launch.
You approve the angles and ship product. Grapevine sources creators, handles briefs and payments, then produces and posts the content.
Madison Reed achieved 20% efficiencies over target CPA and 50% higher LTV.
Mathnasium cut Meta CPL by 33% in under 30 days.
Cirkul achieved 15-50% lower TikTok CPA and nearly doubled CTR through creator whitelisting.
Put this approach to work with your first campaign on Grapevine.
📢 Google ads tests AI creative insights, expands AI mode ads and introduces new lead terms
Google is introducing new advertising features across Search and Google Ads, including AI-generated creative recommendations, sponsored placements in AI conversations and updated requirements for pay-per-lead advertisers.
The Breakdown:
Google is rolling out multi-turn ads in AI Mode across the U.S., allowing sponsored placements to appear after follow-up questions, not just the first search, as users continue conversations with Google’s AI.
Google Ads is testing a weekly AI-powered Asset activity report, offering headline suggestions, identifying top-performing creatives and highlighting industry search trends to help advertisers improve their campaigns.
The new report organizes recommendations into four categories: Featured, Asset performance, Asset diversity, and Industry trends, although the beta is currently visible in only some accounts.
Google Ads is introducing new opt-in terms for pay-per-lead advertising, covering business verification, customer communications, and service responsibilities. Accepting the terms does not automatically guarantee eligibility or clarify lead pricing.
Google is giving advertisers more ways to reach customers through AI search while using AI to recommend creative improvements. However, advertisers will still need to validate suggested headlines against actual campaign results and review the new lead-generation requirements before opting in.
🗝️ Tweet of the Day
💃Events
🔥 How to Show What Your AI Search Budget Actually Bought
November 20 | 2 PM ET | Virtual Event
Google Meridian creator Hitesh Wadhwani and AirOps COO Matt Hammel break down how to quantify AI search exposure, distinguish recommendations from simple mentions, and bring that signal into marketing mix models. Leave with the exact measurement gaps to fix before your next budget review.
Can’t attend the session live? Register anyway, and you’ll get the recordings in 24 hours.
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