Incrementality analytics platform Haus — which generated attention when it released an incrementality study on Meta’s AI-enabled Advantage+ ad system in July — has now done something similar with TikTok.
TikTok has steadily added AI enhancements to its ad platform including this past June.
The results look hopeful if you’re a TikTok marketer as Haus summarized:
“When brands started running experiments on Haus in 2021, TikTok was a marketing wild card. Today, it’s our third-most tested channel after Google and Meta.
Not every brand tests TikTok frequently. But across brands who have run 3+ Haus incrementality experiments on TikTok, they have on average scaled TikTok by an additional 13% beyond their first-test baseline spend, relative to other digital channels in search and social.”
See all the stats on “The TikTok report.” (December 4)
The study also showed TikTok’s “halo effect.” AI-enabled ads on the platform can significantly affect purchase behavior on Amazon, for example.
From tipsheet: Social media magic. I think TikTok is just scratching the surface of what it can do given in advertising with AI given its scale and real-time reflection of trends.
LLMS & CHATBOTS
Developments
- Introducing Anthropic Interviewer: What 1,250 professionals told us about working with AI (December 4) – Anthropic
- Meta could ax up to one-third of its ‘metaverse’ budget next year (December 4) – The Verge
- The ‘truth serum’ for AI: OpenAI’s new method for training models to confess their mistakes (December 4) – VentureBeat
SELL-SIDE
Tricky “human” bots for publishers
The Information’s Catherine Perloff previewed her latest article on LinkedIn (December 4) and said, “Publishers thought blocking the bots would be a way to negotiate with AI firms. But it’s proving tricky.”
Perloff found that bot crawlers connected to xAI’s Grok chatbot are posing as humans in order to be allowed to surf a website.
She offered an example:
“…a staffer at cybersecurity firm DataDome prompted xAI’s chatbot Grok to visit a website DataDome runs to analyze security threats. The website rarely gets much web traffic, but after the Grok request, it got a dozen visitors within the space of five to 10 seconds. One was clearly a bot, but others visited from a Firefox browser or an iPhone, as a human might.
Perloff follows the trend and notes similarities to the current Amazon-Perplexity battle which has the future of agentic shopping at its core. She also noted the use of bot detection with several companies rising to the top:
“Three publishers told The Information they preferred DataDome. That included Gerald Killeen, vice president of engineering at Mansueto Ventures, which owns Fast Company and Inc. Forrester Research also called out DataDome as among the leaders in bot-management software, alongside Human, in a report in mid-2024.”
Read: “Inside Web Publishers’ Quest to Stamp Out AI Bots Posing as Humans” (December 4) – The Information (subscription)
From tipsheet: Though there was no example of verified, stolen content in the article, unauthorized access by a bot crawler is enough to set off alarms given AI’s power to ingest and diffuse its learnings. And then there’s the server load being carried by the publisher websites – it can get pricey.
LLMS & CHATBOTS
Quote of the day: Ads in a chatbot
“There’s been back and forth on whether or not OpenAI is rolling out ads in ChatGPT (…) The most recent reporting out of the ‘code red‘ memo, meeting, et cetera. There was a bunch of different accounts, including Polymarket, that were sharing that OpenAI is ready to roll out ads. One thing that was notable was that I saw a ton of people dunking on it and being like, just very against ads.
Eric Seufert, Ben Thompson, were holding up the wall being like, ‘We will stand with you, Sam Altman and Fidji Simo, If you roll out.’ (…) OpenAI should want Gemini to go first.
If I’m Google, I wouldn’t run a single ad on Gemini core.”
COMMERCE MEDIA
AI is enabling shopping by voice
On the most recent episode of Adweek’s “The Speed of Culture” podcast with reporter Matt Britton, Amazon shopping VP Amanda Doerr provided a high-level overview of Amazon AI shopping from a consumer’s perspective.
While ads aren’t part of the discussion, Amazon’s AI-shopping assistant, Rufus, and voice are.
Among his key takeaways after the podcast, Adweek’s Britton said:
“[08:24] Designing for Mobile-First and Voice-Driven Shopping — More than two-thirds of e-commerce now happens on mobile, and Amanda explains how mobile-first e-commerce demands sharper focus and intentional choices about what information appears and when. She also shares how voice commerce through the Alexa shopping experience allows natural refinement like speaking commands, adjusting visually, and interacting fluidly. A shopper can say, ‘Show this in white,’ and it does that and keep moving without breaking rhythm. The store behaves like a trusted human guide, not a rigid interface.”
Read more takeaways on Adweek. (December 4)
Listen to this episode of the “The Speed of Culture” podcast on the Apple Podcasts app. (December 4)
From tipsheet: The Alexa voice example for shopping speaks to shopping anywhere, anytime and without the use of a screen… such as while driving a car. It also speaks to growth in addressable audio ads —as disruptive as that may sound while driving.
COMMERCE
AI and shopping experiences
- Ashley offers AI-powered shopping experience through Perplexity and PayPal (December 4) – Retail Dive
- New payments startup: “InFlow Launches to Power Frictionless Growth and Monetization for AI Agents” (December 4) – press release
- AI startup Vambe raises $14M to automate conversational commerce in Latin America (December 3) – Silicon Angle
SELL-SIDE
AI creating new urgency in data quality
In a new report from data quality measurement company Compliant, AdExchanger reporter Allison Schiff noted the report’s self-evident finding that “Quality drives performance and efficiency” when it comes to programmatic advertising.
But in a conversation with Compliant CEO Jamie Barnard, she wrote that AI is creating new urgency:
“With AI starting to play a major role in media buying and optimization, the need for transparency and high-quality data is more pressing than ever, Barnard said, which might finally be enough to push brands to act on what they know.The rise of generative AI and agentic tools makes detailed data and real-time analytics possible, but also amplifies the need to fix data quality issues from the get-go.
The rise of generative AI and agentic tools makes detailed data and real-time analytics possible, but also amplifies the need to fix data quality issues from the get-go.”
Read more on AdExchanger. (December 4)
More: “New Study Proves Data Integrity Is Critical Growth Driver in Digital Advertising” (December 4) – press release
From tipsheet: Do you want the regular, mid-grade or premium data fueling your AI?
MOBILE
CloudX CEO developing his mobile SSP
CloudX CEO Jim Payne (also CEO and co-founder of Mopub) took to X yesterday to announce the latest updates for his mobile supply-side platform.
It sounded like he may be doing some of the development himself: “This is very cool…I integrated SDK and full ad stack through Claude Code into one of our games using our integration agent in no time.”
Read it on X (December 4).
CloudX’s X account explained further, “Mobile SDK integration used to take 4–6 hours. With CloudX AI agents, it now takes ~20 minutes. Our new blog breaks down how synchronized agents handle integration, validation, build fixes, and privacy checks across Android + Flutter (iOS next).” Read that one on X, too. (December 4)
More: “AI Agents in Sync: How CloudX Automates Mobile SDK Integration” (December 4) – CloudX blog
From tipsheet: With $30 million in the bank from CloudX’s initial funding (see tipsheet interview), Mr. Payne and his co-founder, Dan Sack, will no doubt be ramping up hiring.
SEARCH
SEO specialists using LLMs
In a review of the diminished search engine optimization (SEO) skills of LLMs (yes, you read that right), Search Engine Land prognosticates on the future of the SEO generalist. It looks bright:
“The shift from ‘chatbots’ to ‘agents’ doesn’t eliminate the need for SEO talent, it elevates it.
Today’s AI models are not plug-and-play solutions, they are tools that require skilled operators.
Just as you wouldn’t expect an untrained medical professional to successfully perform an artificial surgery, you can’t hand a complex model a prompt and expect high-quality SEO outcomes.”
Read more. (December 4)
From tipsheet: SEO skills are AEO skills appears to be the message.
But, “black hat” and “gray hat” SEO tactics are a “no go” as we learned from Eric Seufert’s podcast with Fermat CEO Rishabh Jain on Mobile Dev Memo.
BRANDS
Can AI make brands more human?
Co-founder and CEO Paul Aaron of Addition, an “AI system design and development studio” acquired by independent agency R/GA in March, reviewed the opportunity of AI mixing with brands and making them “more human.”
Even though he’s writing on the Google “Think With Google” blog, he doesn’t back away from the perception of a potential “slop fest” courtesy of AI in a preview of his post on LinkedIn (December 3).
On Google blog, he distilled his agency (or agentic) thinking:
“Marketing has traditionally been a planning exercise. Campaigns are conceived months in advance, creative is locked weeks before launch, and messaging follows predetermined scripts regardless of what’s happening in the world.
Generative AI enables a fundamentally different approach, one where brands can respond to the world as it unfolds.”
Read: “Can AI make brands more human?” (December 2025) – Think With Google
From tipsheet: No wonder a social publisher like Reddit is popular with AI companies looking to crawl content today given the opportunity to access a real-time “pulse” from consumers. Brands can’t get enough either, it seems.
MORE
- Google’s Move into AI Ads Puts the Spotlight on OpenAI’s Monetization Strategy (December 3) – Marketecture’s Ad Tech Explained
- Inuvo Launches Ranger: AI Tool for Ad Quality and Compliance (December 3) – press release
- Publicis celebrates its past with an AI film that warns about advertising’s next era (December 4) – Ad Age (subscription)
- New payments startup: “InFlow Launches to Power Frictionless Growth and Monetization for AI Agents” (December 4) – press release