📊 Q3 results.
Platforms share their Q3 reports, Google admits AI mode is earning less than traditional search, and more.
In this issue
Happy Friday.
The next time we land in your inbox, it’ll be November. Already.
We’re fairly sure October started last Tuesday, but the calendar refuses to back us up. So if a 2026 goal is still sitting in “we’ll get to it” mode, consider this your friendly nudge. Two months is plenty of time.
Ask us again in December.
Reddit loses traffic and Pinterest’s per-user revenue stalls in Q3, while Meta says AI pulls its weight
Earnings calls are basically Marvel movies. Big numbers up front, the twist after the credits.
Reddit cashes in. Its Q3 letter shows ad revenue up 54% to $847M, on higher prices and more impressions. Video ad revenue more than doubled.
The catch: in October, search referrals fell by over 1M a week on average, and Reddit warns daily users could drop by a low-double-digit percentage from 130M in Q4.
Its answer: making Reddit logged-in-only, with tests outside the US this quarter. Fewer people may see your ads, but logins give Reddit more targeting signals.
Pinterest grows wider, not deeper. Its Q3 results show:
- Monthly users: a record 661M, up 10%
- Revenue: $1.174B, up 12%
- Revenue per user: $1.80, up just 1% and down 7% in Europe.
Its Q4 guide of 8 to 12% growth tops out at Q3’s pace.
Nearly all the user growth came from outside the US and Canada, where Pinterest earns far less per user. Selling mainly in North America? Pinterest’s audience there grew just 4%.
Meta’s AI is pulling its weight, says Meta. Upgrades to its ad ranking system, which picks the ads people see, lifted Facebook clicks 8.3% and conversions 15.7% in Q2.
The boost is automatic, but your goal, data quality and how much you let the AI optimize still shape results.
And a new feature shows which ads did the work: Ads Manager’s new Breakdown option shows how each image, video and text variation performs.
It skips collection and carousel displays, plus some custom conversions like Donate and Subscribe.
Google admits AI Mode earns less, then expands its ads to 10 more countries
Chief Brody saw the shark and said they’d need a bigger boat.
Google saw AI Mode’s revenue and reached a similar verdict: it’s gonna need more ads.
More chats, less cash: On Alphabet’s Q3 earnings call, Google business chief Philipp Schindler said booming AI Mode queries weighed on Search growth.
His reason: AI Mode’s “lower monetization.” Translation: those searches earn Google less, for now.
Alphabet’s revenue grew 25% to $127.6 billion, but with tamer ad growth:
- Search & other: $63.35 billion, up 12%, down from 17% in Q2
- YouTube ads: $11.21 billion, up 9%
- Network ads: $7.46 billion, up 1%
Search barely moved from Q2’s $63.27 billion, even as Sundar Pichai says query growth, commercial queries included, hit a five-year high.
Google blamed currency swings most, and expects them to hurt slightly more in Q4.
The fix is in. More ads: Google’s ads in AI Mode now run in 10 more countries, including Australia, Canada and India.
Brazil, Mexico and the UK are among the Q4 additions. In the US, new multiturn ads also show on follow-up questions.
Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are eligible for AI Mode by default, with no separate opt-out. Negative keywords still apply, so review them.
Paid, meet organic: Google is also testing Shopping ads inside AI Mode’s organic product carousels, under “Sponsored” and “All products” headings. A spokesperson confirmed it.
And most roads lead to Mountain View: A recent report found 57% of AI Mode’s product-answer links led to Google Shopping pages.
It counted links, not clicks, but with ads beside them, where they point matters more.
Just remember who pays for Google’s bigger boat.
We switched to beehiiv and cut $15k a year in costs
Our old newsletter setup stopped sparking joy a few price hikes ago.
So we thanked it, Marie Kondo style, and moved to beehiiv, the creator platform to write, grow, and earn in one place.
You might have read how we moved. Here’s why.
Tools that actually help us grow and save time. Our old ESP didn’t add any features we used in over two years. While beehiiv’s MCP server is central to our new workflow, and the Recommendation network is an easy growth win.
Now email, website, and paid memberships share one platform, and we spend $15k a year less on tools and plugins.
The best part? Deliverability. One month in, ours is as good as before, and so is engagement.
Why not sooner? Rebuilding everything by hand would have eaten our first year of savings.
beehiiv’s MCP server connects AI assistants to your account. It cut months of work to a week.
Try it free for 14 days, no card needed. Then use code SM30 to take 30% off your first three months.
AI influencers get over 20% more engagement when they hang out with real people
AI-generated influencers never age and never miss a shoot. Their social lives, however, need work.
Science Says broke down a new study on what all that solitude costs.
The researchers analyzed 9,500+ AI influencer posts and ran four experiments.
Table for one, please: Only 15% of AI influencer posts show the influencer interacting with someone. Bad call.
Posts that did earned 20.7% more engagement, an average of 290 extra likes or comments.
Friends close deals, too: People were up to 17.5% more likely to choose the product an AI influencer promoted when the post showed it engaging with a real person.
Selling activewear? Send your AI on a run with a human.
Extras and robot buddies don’t count: The boost disappears when a person just stands next to the AI influencer, and when the companion is another AI character. They have to actually do something together.
Why the coffee date works: People know an AI can’t experience a product in real life, so they trust it less.
Watching it do everyday things, like grabbing coffee with friends, makes it more relatable and more trustworthy.
The effect grows stronger for less human-looking influencers, such as anime-style characters.
Sometimes fake is the point: Selling fantasy video games? Looking artificial may work in your favor. And on average, human influencers still out-engage AI ones.
The Crew’s take: Humanizing your AI influencer is smart. Passing it off as a person is getting risky.
Since June, New York has made advertisers disclose AI performers that look human, and California’s version kicks in January 1. Label the AI, and let its human co-star build trust.
So before you generate the next post, book your AI influencer a friend. A human one.
A new AI tool every week? Get three ways to use it by Monday
New AI models come out on a schedule that would make Marvel jealous. Most marketers bookmark the hype and move on.
Tactics skips the hype and gets straight to the work. Every Saturday, our free newsletter takes one new AI tool and turns it into three tactics you can apply on Monday.
Each tactic comes with:
- A "do it now" checklist
- A copy-paste prompt
- A live example to steal from
All in 7 minutes or less, so your coffee won't even go cold.
ChatGPT spends most of its time off the clock
ChatGPT has a work life, but its personal life is busier.
In a recent issue, we covered OpenAI data showing that looking up information now edges out writing as ChatGPT’s top use. This chart adds the context:
Roughly 76% of those lookups have nothing to do with work. Practical guidance is 74% personal, and self-expression is 91%.
Only one category leans toward work: technical help, at 57%. Writing is close to an even split, with 49% for work.
People now ask ChatGPT what they used to ask Google, like what to buy or how to fix something.
Those personal, high-intent moments are where ChatGPT’s new ads, now arriving through Amazon DSP, will show up.
If you sell to consumers, ask ChatGPT the questions your buyers ask. Fix any wrong or missing answers about your products before you pay to appear next to them. That’s a start.
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.*
YOUTUBE: Soon, the cliffhanger does the selling. YouTube will let mobile viewers join a channel membership mid-series to keep watching members-only Shorts episodes. Microdramas, short dramas told in vertical episodes, passed 6.5B views in H1. And 40% of episode views come 30+ days after release, so your sponsored episodes keep paying off.
AMAZON: Blame Prime Day’s move into Q2. Q3 ad revenue grew just 11%, to $19.64 billion. Ads Agent, its AI ad platform, now lets all US advertisers run sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV as one Full-Funnel Campaign. You set inputs, and AI does the rest.
AI MARKETING: Adobe found AI referrals converted 90% better on US retail sites in September, brought 83% more revenue per visit and grew 71% year over year. Adobe expects a 159% jump on Thanksgiving. Before BFCM, check what your AI visitors buy.
SHOPIFY: Your newest media buyer works for Shopify. Campaign Autopilot takes your budget and guardrails, picks channels, splits spend and shifts it toward what works. It’s now in every merchant’s Growth tab and covers most ad channels. Set those guardrails before BFCM.
MICROSOFT: Need a Bing benchmark? Microsoft just made it blurrier. Its search and advertising revenue, minus what it pays partners for traffic, grew 12% last quarter. But that line now includes LinkedIn’s ad business, so you can no longer track Bing’s ad growth separately.
GOOGLE: Manage a restaurant’s Google listing? You can now switch off individual ordering apps, like DoorDash or Uber Eats, in the Business Profile dashboard, for pickup, delivery or both. No more waiting on providers to remove you. Every provider shows by default, so audit yours, but keep the apps your diners already subscribe to.
*This is a sponsored post.
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