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Morning, gap-hunters.

Budgets are drifting to places your media plan still treats like side quests. Reddit is quietly becoming the research aisle, Meta is changing how Shops checkout works, and agentic commerce is moving from talk to pay buttons.

No BS, just plays worth stealing.

GAP OF THE WEEK: “Reddit Is The Pre-Cart Funnel”

The hole:
Most brands ignore Reddit until there is a PR crisis. Meanwhile buyers are researching in threads your team never reads.

The wedge:
Treat Reddit like the last honest focus group.

Show up with expertise, seed decision frameworks, sponsor the right communities, and measure lift with brand search and assisted conversions.

Why now:

• AI answer engines increasingly cite Reddit content, which keeps Reddit top of mind during research. Reddit’s ad revenue still drives the business, up 78 percent year over year in Q2 2025 with nearly 500 million in revenue, and licensing to AI firms adds a high-margin stream. (Wall Street Journal)

• Fashion and shopping behavior are shifting to Reddit for authentic advice, especially among men. Brands that engage usefully win trust before the cart. (Vogue Business)

Exit vision:
Pick two high-intent subreddits. Contribute weekly playbooks, run AMA formats, and pilot community-safe ads that answer real questions. Track Reddit impressions against branded search, newsletter signups, and assisted revenue.

SPOTLIGHT: Meta Shops Checkout Is Changing

Meta is phasing out checkout on Facebook and Instagram for most shops by the end of August 2025. If you sell through Shops, migrate to website checkout, update pixels, and rework attribution now so you do not orphan conversions.

(Instagram Help Center, PPC Land)

Why it matters:
Less native checkout means more drop-off if your site is slow. Fix speed, simplify cart, and make sure your product feeds and tags still populate cleanly post-migration. (PPC Land)

⚡ TWO-MINUTE GAPS

TikTok Shop Is Where Sellers Are Pivoting
Top Amazon sellers say TikTok Shop and live selling are the growth levers in 2025. If your catalog is impulse friendly, test affiliates and Live now, not holiday. (Business Insider)

Agentic Commerce Goes Real With PayPal
Perplexity will let users purchase inside chat using PayPal or Venmo. That is fewer clicks from research to conversion, and a signal to prep product data for conversational shopping. (Reuters, PayPal Newsroom)

LinkedIn Video Keeps Surging
LinkedIn reports video viewership up 36 percent year over year. Short native clips with a cold open and one takeaway are winning the feed. (Digiday)

WEEK IN 3 TWEETS

1) Sam Altman is saying otherwise

—

2) You can post today

“Your product page needs to answer a chatbot, not just rank for a keyword.”

“If you are not watching Reddit, you are ignoring where buyers decide.”

—

3) I guess accounting is the world’s oldest profession

🤯 STAT OF THE DAY

6 million weekly active users on Reddit Answers in Q2, up fivefold sequentially. Translate that as more pre-cart decisions happening in AI-summarized Reddit contexts. (Nasdaq)

VIRAL STORY OF THE DAY

Rejected on TV, Viral in Stores

After getting turned down on Dragons’ Den, Hair Syrup founder Lucie Macleod saw a sales surge and added 50,000 followers.

Revenue hit about £4.5 million in 2024 with £6.5 million projected for 2025, plus retail wins at Boots and Superdrug. Failure was the ad.

(Read here: The Times)

⏭ CLOSING LOOP

Publishing Monday through Friday.
Forward this to the teammate still treating Reddit like a meme site and Shops like they never change.

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