ChatGPT users come ready to buy and big brands are discovering what triggers chatbot ads

Shut up and take my money: A 12-month analysis of 94 ecommerce brands found that ChatGPT referral traffic converted 31% higher than non-branded organic search.

Why? Users refine their buying decisions before they ever click. They don’t want to browse.

ChatGPT visits grew 1,079% across 2025, and revenue per session came in at $3.65 vs. $3.30 for organic. Volume is still small, but the gap is narrowing fast.

Higher-intent buyers are already arriving through AI so track ChatGPT referrals in GA4 or you’ll miss a channel that’s converting better than organic.

Especially when ads have literally entered the chat: Early ChatGPT ad data, pulled from over 1,500 prompts, shows that big brands are already securing placements.

Trigger logic is straightforward. High-intent phrases like “best” and “new” carry serious weight, and most ads fire on the very first prompt.

Get familiar with the triggewhrs now, or pay to catch up later.

What the creator economy means for your influencer campaigns; Threads is expanding DM features and bringing them to the UK

Turns out going viral and paying rent are still two different things.

Half the hustle, half the pay: A new study from The Influencer Marketing Factory found that nearly half of creators earn under $10K annually.

Yet, 51% report income growth, and 45% now earn between $10K and $100K. That growing middle tier represents an affordable, highly engaged pool of micro-creators.

With incomes rising, it might be a smart time to lock in partnerships before rates catch up.

Instagram’s AI has light fingers: The platform is quietly testing a feature that lifts product recommendations straight from influencer Reels, redirecting their followers to dupes they never endorsed, without so much as a heads up.

Influencers say it mimics their language and redirects followers to items they never endorsed. Sounds a bit shady, Meta…

Why we care: Your partners’ carefully built trust with their audience could be quietly undermined, so it’s worth flagging with your creator partners sooner rather than later.

“DM me” is now a hyperlink: Threads is testing a feature in the US and Canada that turns phrases like “DM me” into clickable links. Tapping one opens a direct conversation instantly.

Direct conversations convert better than passive scrolling, and this makes starting one frictionless.

And speaking of DMs: Threads has officially rolled out DMs and Ghost posts in the UK, putting British brands on equal footing with their US counterparts.

If your audience is UK-based, most brands haven’t moved on this yet, which is exactly when moving first pays off.

3 reports to optimize your Performance Max campaigns

Performance Max used to feel like taking a risk with your campaigns. Handing them over to someone sketchy who would “take care of them.”

But as Michelle Morgan points out, that era is over. Google has rolled out the reporting you’ve been after, meaning it’s time to start treating it like a controllable campaign.

Here are the three reports she recommends:

1) Search term insights: One of the biggest annoyances with PMax was its tendency to cannibalize existing Search campaigns by bidding on whatever it felt like.

Now, you can see the actual search terms triggering your ads. You can find these in the insights tab or the standard search terms report.

If you see your brand terms being hijacked or irrelevant queries draining your budget, you can now fight back with negative keywords. You can reclaim that precision.

2) Placements report: This shows exactly where your ads are showing across the Google network. While it currently only shows impression counts, it’s still vital for spotting junk.

If you see your ads popping up on obscure mobile apps that have nothing to do with your audience, you can exclude those URLs at the account level.

Just remember, an account-level exclusion kills that placement for every campaign, so be mindful not to totally zap it if that placement works elsewhere.

3) Channel performance insights: Google is rolling out a channel performance report that breaks down how your ads fare on different properties like YouTube, Display, and Search.

You can’t manually toggle these channels on or off yet, but the data is gold for your creative team. If you see Search doing well while Display lags, it’s a signal to tweak your assets.

Don’t just blame the algorithm; use the data to customize your asset lists so they lean into the strengths of the high-performing channels.

Performance Max is only as good as the guardrails you give it. With these new reports, you have the data to build them.

If something isn’t working, you now have the evidence to turn it off and keep your budget focused on what actually moves the needle.

The future of advertising? AI will have a say

The customer journey is about to get a lot shorter and a whole lot more unpredictable.

Conversational interfaces are moving into the palace and traditional search’s crown might be slipping as a result:

The next 2-3 years will see a total reconfiguration of digital space.

• 64% of marketers expect a reduced use of traditional search engines like Google.
• 50% predict an increased use of AI chatbots and conversational interfaces as the primary entry point for users.
• 43% foresee shorter consumer journeys due to AI-assisted decision-making, which means your ads have less time to make an impression.

The behavior will shift from “search and find” to “ask and receive,” which will fragment the journey but also make it more personal.

Our advice? Something that you’re probably hearing a lot. Experiment with AI-powered marketing as much as possible. That’s it. That’s the tip.

AI is changing how people search and discover brands. Oh and Pro subscribers get weekly insights on these shifts plus tactical adjustments you can make today.

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