Just in: fees, affiliate creators, and the case for Close Friends…

Have your campaigns put on some weight?

Because budgets just got a little tighter: Meta now charges location-specific fees on top of campaign budgets for ads in select countries.

You might see up to 5% extra depending on the market, billed as a separate line item on your invoice. Audit your geo-targeting now before your reporting looks inexplicably off.

And your next best creator partnership might be self-serve: Meta’s expanded affiliate program gives Reels creators shoppable links from brands like Amazon and Shopee.

That means scalable, performance-based exposure without the negotiation or the dedicated influencer budget.

One note though: affiliate content requires a paid partnership label, so factor that in.

That little green ring is actually a CRM: Instagram’s Close Friends feature is the highest-trust, lowest-cost backchannel you might be sleeping on.

Green ring stories get watched more closely, replied to faster, and forwarded more often than standard broadcast content.

Curate a tight list of creators, partners, and tastemakers, then use it to test products, source UGC, and build genuine affinity with the right people.

Oh and AI profiles are coming to your feed: Meta’s acquisition of Moltbook suggests interactive AI accounts are closer than most brands are prepared for.

Zuckerberg has made no secret of wanting a feed where content talks back.

The question worth asking now is whether your brand voice, creative strategy, and community management still make sense when half the accounts in the room aren’t human.

Link your Amazon Storefront to Pinterest, YouTube goes long, and X reveals its women’s audience

Like a matchmaker who also takes a cut: Pinterest now lets Amazon Influencer Program creators link their Storefronts directly to their profiles and tag affiliate products without leaving the app.

What this means: Less tab-switching, more shoppable Pins, more commission opportunities. If you work with affiliate creators, this is a smoother pipeline worth building into your strategy.

Pinterest is pushing hard to make every surface shoppable, so native integrations like this will only get more valuable.

Your living room is now a full commercial break: YouTube is replacing its double-15 ad format on TV apps with 30- and 60-second unskippable slots.

Yes, this means more uninterrupted ad space on the fastest-growing screen in the house.

YouTube now accounts for 10.4% of all TV viewing, and 70% of YouTube Select impressions happen on connected TVs. CPMs have dropped significantly since 2019.

The CTV audience is massive, it’s still growing, and it’s cheaper to reach than it used to be. If you haven’t explored CTV budgets yet, it might be the time.

Meanwhile, X has some audience intelligence to share: New X data reveals that women on the platform cluster around pop culture, TV, and music, with millennials leading the conversation.

Women’s sports are also surging, with WNBA All-Star impressions up 33% YoY.

If women are in your target audience, these topic clusters are your roadmap for organic engagement and ad targeting alike.

Just don’t expect the ads to convert cleanly. 88% of users reportedly haven’t purchased from an X ad…

Why you should stop spamming Reddit for citations

Several growth hackers have realized that LLMs love inhaling Reddit threads.

So naturally, they’ve decided the best SEO strategy is to flood subreddits with fake praise.

However, as Eli Schwartz says, this is a fantastic way to get publicly embarrassed and not necessarily get the results you want.

It sounds like the ultimate cheat code. Seed some positive mentions, let the AI vacuum them up, and watch your brand become the top recommendation in every ChatGPT response.

But if a strategy sounds too clean to be true, it’s usually just a mess waiting to happen.

AI can smell your desperation: The only reason LLMs care about Reddit is because of decades of genuine, messy human emotion.

When brands hire agencies to flood threads with templated “authentic” reviews, they aren’t replicating that value.

Reddit is tightly guarded by people who have spent years sniffing out corporate drivel. A brand-new account posting about how much they love a specific SaaS tool isn’t subtle.

Users will flag it, downvote it, and ban it. This content is often paired with a public call-out that does more damage to your reputation than the original post did good.

Here’s the kicker: Reddit is selling its data directly to Google and OpenAI. This isn’t just about what’s visible on the front end.

These partnerships give AI companies access to everything, including deleted and banned content. If your brand is consistently flagged as spam, that’s a negative signal that erodes your authority rather than building it.

The version of this strategy that actually works is, wait for it, showing up and being useful. The only way to win on Reddit is not to treat it like a billboard. But like a community.

Have real people from your company provide actual answers, be transparent about who you are, and earn trust the hard way.

AI visibility is a byproduct of being a brand worth talking about. If you spend your time trying to game the citation pipeline with manufactured mentions, you’ll likely end up burned by the very communities you’re trying to reach.

Be on Reddit, but don’t be a “real fake.”

Stop making shoppers do the math

If you want to win over a skeptical shopper, don’t make them connect the dots.

Instead, provide them with the ultimate buy button. Clarity:

When it comes to easy product comparisons, these are the numbers:

• A combined 84% of shoppers are more likely to purchase if a retailer makes it easy to compare key product attributes.
• 37% of respondents said they would be “much more likely” to buy with better comparison tools.
• Only a small 16% said they would be no more likely to purchase.

Our take: Friction in information leads to friction in sales.

Imagine when a user has to open five tabs to compare specs. You’re basically asking them to abandon the cart.

Implement a side-by-side comparison feature on your product pages. Highlighting “Our Model vs. Competitors” (on key specs) can keep the user on your page instead of tab-jumping.

A lot of brands are already doing it to great success.

Every point of friction costs you sales. Pro subscribers get breakdowns of what shoppers actually want and how to build experiences that convert.

$349/year for up to 10 people.