📝 ChatGPT rewrites.
OpenAI can rewrite your ChatGPT ads on its own, Gemini makes Google Search optional, and more.
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OpenAI can rewrite your ChatGPT ads from October 29 unless you opt out
Autocorrect has “fixed” plenty of texts nobody asked it to fix. From October 29, ChatGPT gets the same power over your ads, and you won’t see every edit first.
Your ads get a ghostwriter: OpenAI’s creative enhancements tailor your ChatGPT ads to the conversation and the user’s interests, using your ad and landing page.
On October 29, they switch on by default for new and existing campaigns. They can:
- Rewrite headlines and descriptions
- Translate your copy
- Resize images
- Send clicks to a different page on your site
Enhanced versions can run without your approval, and there’s no preview of every one.
Want the final say? Opt out in Ads Manager before October 29. Campaign settings beat the account default, so you can also test it on one campaign.
Spotted in the wild: Search Engine Watch caught ChatGPT testing two more ad features:
- Single-brand shopping ads at the bottom of answers. One site’s name and favicon sit above grey cards with product names and prices, so no competitor shares the unit.
- A CTA button inside ads, with a dotted underline and an arrow. ChatGPT ads had no CTA before, and a clear next step may earn more clicks.
Case closed on the missing tags: After the GPT-6 release, ChatGPT links stopped carrying the utm_source=chatgpt.com tag, which tells your analytics a visit came from ChatGPT.
ChatGPT links also hide referral data, so analytics tools counted many of those visits as direct traffic.
OpenAI confirmed it was a bug and started rolling out a fix on October 15.
What to do: Annotate October 8 to 15 in GA4 or Adobe Analytics, and leave your attribution models alone.
Your ads may change faces, but at least your ChatGPT clicks got their name tags back.
Gemini lets users switch off Google Search, and YouTube tests AI answers above videos
Morpheus made Neo choose between a red pill and a blue pill.
Gemini users can now make a similar call: live Google results, or what the model already knows.
Blue pill, no citations: Google added a Search Google option to Gemini’s web app. For each prompt, users can:
- Force a Google search, say for recent events
- Skip it when they don’t need live results
Until now, Gemini made that call itself. With Search off, it has no web sources to cite, so your content can’t earn a citation there.
Your fans get a shortcut: Google is testing a Source preferences button in AI Mode’s citations sidebar.
It lets searchers add or remove preferred sources (the sites they’ve chosen to favor) without leaving the answer.
AI Mode has supported preferred sources since May, so ask loyal readers to add your site.
AI Overviews go undercover: On desktop, some now show up without their label, like knowledge-panel-style answers for shows and movies. Mobile still labels them.
SE Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz suspects a bug. The missing labels may also explain why Semrush reports a drop in AI Overviews.
Tracker showing the same drop? Check the results page yourself before you report it.
Ask YouTube cuts the line: YouTube is testing answers from its AI chatbot at the top of regular search results.
The test reaches some signed-in US desktop users searching in English. Answers can show up on open-ended, how-to and skill-based questions.
If how-to searches feed your channel, an AI answer may now sit above your videos, so watch your YouTube search traffic.
Whichever pill searchers take, your own data is the best reality check.
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How to get into AI answers through Reddit without getting banned
Reddit is where your buyers ask strangers if your product is any good.
- The good thing: Those threads rank in Google and feed AI answers.
- The bad thing: Redditors can smell marketing a mile away.
Bill Widmer got B2B SaaS agency Scalerrs to share the Reddit playbook it runs for dozens of clients.
Let your keyword list pick the threads: Search Reddit for the 200 to 500 keywords your SEO team targets. For B2B SaaS, that turns up about 150 subreddits with threads that rank.
Skip anything older than 20 days, since those comments are the easiest ones for Reddit to flag and remove.
Build a history, answer, then leave: Moderators read comment history, so build the account with helpful answers to unrelated questions long before you mention a product.
When you comment, answer the question in full. Would your reply work as a ChatGPT answer? Then get out.
Lose the brand voice: Real stories and emotion beat polish. A blog promises to save you $10,000 a year on insurance. Reddit tells you you’re already losing $10,000 a year.
Earn your own threads: Wait until the community trusts the account. AMAs work, like the one Attio CRM’s cofounder ran in r/CRM, and so do pain-point posts.
Owned subreddits worked for 30% to 40% of Scalerrs’ clients, only in underserved niches.
Check your own name daily: Search your brand on Reddit, sorted by new.
After LastPass’s security incidents, one community kept “don’t use it” threads alive. They still rank for the brand name and show up in ChatGPT answers.
Count citations, not upvotes: Track whether AI answers cite your threads, engine by engine.
The Crew’s take: In August, Reddit’s share of ChatGPT Search citations fell from 3.83% to 0.52% in four days, per Promptwatch, and nothing we’ve seen since shows a rebound.
ChatGPT still reads Reddit while researching, but rarely links it. Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and Perplexity held up far better, so measure your Reddit wins there first.
Reddit only pays off once your own site is worth citing, and an hour a week won’t move anything.
No Reddit regular with spare time on your team? Stick to the daily brand search.
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YouTube engagement peaks at 1 to 3 minutes, then hits a wall
Goldilocks would feel right at home on YouTube.
Pixability tracked organic engagement across its US clients’ videos in Q2 2026, and one length came out just right.
Videos spanning 3 to 20 minutes are the worst performers (0.3%). Interesting.
On the other hand:
- 1 to 3 minutes (2.2%) are the clear winner, while 30 to 60 seconds (1.3%) follow close.
- The same goes for 20+ minutes (1.2%), so long-form holds up.
- Under 30 seconds (0.8%) might be too short for a significant engagement.
All in all, the chart makes a U-shape with a deep middle. Videos of 1 to 3 minutes engage about 7x better than anything from 3 to 20 minutes.
One caveat: the data covers only Pixability clients, so your channel may differ.
YouTube now allows Shorts up to three minutes, so the top bucket likely includes many of them. Viewers want either a quick hit or a deep dive.
Mid-length videos ask for time without feeling like an event.
Actionable tip: Audit your 3 to 20 minute videos. Cut the best ones into 1 to 3 minute clips, or expand them into 20+ minute deep dives.
AI MARKETING: This daily newsletter condenses the latest and greatest AI developments into a 5-minute read. They read the noise, pull out the signal, and explain what actually matters for work, strategy, and the tools your team is already using. Trusted by 700k+ readers. Subscribe right here.*
NETFLIX: Counting on Netflix’s new ad tools? So was Netflix. It now expects about $2.7B in 2026 ad revenue, down from roughly $3B, because some ad features rolled out a bit slower than expected. Subscription revenue outperformed, so the shortfall sits with ads. Before you plan around a Netflix ad feature, check it’s actually live.
YOUTUBE: Your creator partners may soon have a Shorts quota. In the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and South Korea, YouTube is testing bonuses for invited creators who post enough Shorts (one invite asked for 16 a month). Payouts depend on “valid, engaged” views. Another test lets brands offer creators bonus affiliate commissions.
META: One search exposed 6,800 shared chats from Muse, Meta’s new AI agent. Meta put each chat’s title in the share link’s web address, where public DNS records it, so security firm Claroc found them. They included a marketing company’s revenue review. Meta paused sharing. Treat your team’s AI share links like public posts.
BING: First thing searchers see could be your ad. Bing is testing a dedicated sponsored placement at the top of its results page. In one “pest control services cost near me” search, an Orkin ad with an image and a “Get Quote” button sat in its own box, above every organic result.
GOOGLE ADS: Finance advertisers in the US and Canada, dig out your paperwork. From early 2027, Google’s Financial Services Verification will make you prove a regulator or recognized registry authorizes you before certain financial ads run. For US banks, Google will use the American Bankers Association’s registry. It’ll tell you if you need to verify.
PMAX: Price or quality: which pitch wins? Your asset groups may soon tell you. A Google Ads coach spotted a new Performance Max toggle that saves asset group changes as an A/B test of your headlines, descriptions, images and videos. You can’t edit mid-test, and the traffic split is unclear. Test whole new asset sets.
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