The Click Brief- September 2026

Follow The Click Brief for fast, no-fluff performance marketing updates every month.

Top Takeaways

Biggest Platform Shift

Amazon launched its new full-funnel campaigns for U.S. advertisers, combining Sponsored Ads, display, video, and streaming TV into a single AI-optimized campaign. While the format promises simplified management and long-term growth, advertisers have limited control over placements and audiences, making careful testing and performance evaluation essential.

Platform to Watch

ChatGPT Ads introduced new integrations with Shopify and HubSpot, making it easier for advertisers to manage campaigns, connect product data, track performance, and follow up on leads. Jeremy sees these integrations as a significant opportunity for e-commerce advertisers heading into the holiday shopping season.

Visual Search Opportunity

Pinterest announced new visual search ad placements for Performance+ campaigns, combining keyword relevance with AI-powered image recognition. Advertisers can reach shoppers as they explore products visually, creating additional opportunities to connect with users who may not know exactly what they’re searching for.

Measurement Upgrade

Google expanded Data Manager integrations and introduced a new metric showing conversions recovered through first-party data. GA4 also added hostname include filters, giving advertisers more control over which domains can send event data and helping improve reporting accuracy.

AI Agent Watch

Meta introduced Muse, a personal AI agent capable of shopping, booking travel, and completing tasks, while OpenAI began rolling out Dots for ongoing work and research. These developments point toward a future where AI agents play a larger role in how consumers shop and how businesses manage everyday tasks.

Other Platform & AI Updates

• Google made Meridian GeoX generally available for geographic experiments
• Google expanded Data Manager integrations and enhanced conversion capabilities
• GA4 introduced hostname include filters to help manage incoming event data
• Amazon announced a pilot partnership bringing advertising campaigns into ChatGPT
• Amazon introduced Branded Conversations, allowing shoppers to ask follow-up product questions through sponsored Alexa experiences
• TikTok and Shopify expanded connections between affiliate creator content and Spark Ads
• Reddit opened Max campaigns to all advertisers
• Microsoft made campaign experiments generally available and added a HubSpot integration
• Meta introduced additional AI tools for small businesses
• OpenAI and Anthropic released new AI models
• OpenAI began rolling out Dots, designed to manage ongoing tasks and provide updates between conversations

Final Take

September’s updates highlight two major trends shaping digital advertising: platforms are continuing to automate campaign management, while AI-powered shopping and personal agents are changing how consumers discover and purchase products. From Amazon’s full-funnel campaigns to ChatGPT’s expanding advertising integrations, new opportunities are emerging for advertisers willing to test. The key remains understanding where automation adds value, maintaining visibility into performance, and making sure new technology delivers measurable business results.

Episode Transcript

 Jeremy: Hello and welcome to the Click Brief Podcast, your monthly download of what’s new and what matters in digital advertising and paid media. I’m Jeremy Packee and my usual co-host, Emily Anderson is still out on maternity leave, so I’ll be flying solo again this month, but I should have her back for the next podcast, so I’m pretty hyped on that. Emily, I need you. I miss you. We’ll see you soon. Getting back to the updates, September brought Amazon’s full funnel campaigns to the US and new Shopify and HubSpot integrations for ChatGPT ads. Google expanded data manager added a metric for conversions recovered through first party data and made Meridian GeoX generally available for experiments across geographic markets. We also saw TikTok and Shopify MyConnect affiliate creator content with Spark ads. Reddit opened up Max campaigns to all advertisers and Microsoft made campaign experiments generally available and add HubSpot integration. 

In AI Watch, Meta launched Muse, its personal agent for shopping and other tasks, and added tools for small businesses. OpenAI began rolling out dots for ongoing work while both OpenAI and Anthropic released new models. 

So I’m going to read off some of my favorite updates and discuss them starting with on September 29th, Amazon made full funnel campaigns available to all US advertisers with its newly named Amazon Ads Agent Platform. One campaign combines sponsored ads, display, video, and streaming TV. Advertisers provide the budget, products, and creative, and Amazon’s AI executes and optimizes this campaign. Creative requires advertiser approval before launch, reporting combines standard metrics with new to brand and long-term sales metrics. So when I looked into this, I saw that Amazon Beta reported a 67% long-term ROAS lift, but that metric includes a 12-month estimate of future sales from new customers. So part of that is just simply projected so I don’t take that number too seriously. You also can’t pick the channels or audiences, so this campaign can take credit for sales from your sponsored products that you would’ve won anyway. 

And what really concerns me is if you don’t eventually or have any control on branded searches and you’re trying to get a high target ROAS or a low ACOS. So just be careful. I think whenever these fully automated campaigns come out, it’s always worth trying and it always takes time. I remember when PMax came out, it was kind of a dumpster fire for a while. There’s been a lot of updates that make that campaign type way more usable and I’m referring to Performance Max on Google. So this could be a viable option. I would just test it with caution. The next and probably one of my favorite updates is on September 16th, OpenAI launched ChatGPT ads integrations with HubSpot and Shopify. HubSpot users can add an ads account, create ads, track performance, and follow up on leads. The Shopify app launched for US merchants with international availability and supported ChatGPT ads markets scheduled to begin on September 23rd. 

My take is yes, I love this. It was very clunky trying to get product ads into ChatGPT and the fact that it’s connected with Shopify just unlocks everything. We’re already running a lot of ChatGPT ads and the fact that we have a ton of clients on Shopify just makes this way more obvious to test, especially going into Q4, you have Black Friday, Cyber Monday. I absolutely think if you have the budget, you should be testing this, especially if you’re on Shopify or even HubSpot. The next update is on September 10th, Google announced direct data manager integrations and enhanced conversions for Google Analytics and DV360. Google also added a data strength 

upload metric in Google Ads, so this measures additional conversions recovered through an advertiser’s first party data setup. So this one’s kind of confusing. There’s a lot going on here. Mark and our team is really the guy that runs all of the data management and conversion tracking, but I do like that it just pushes us in the direction to see that we’re recovering conversions with this first party data setup. 

The fact that there’s an uplift metric as kind of a check I think is very helpful. So props to Google for doing this one. The next update, and again, this is probably one of my favorites. I know I just said that ChatGPT was one of my favorites, but I thought this was really neat from Pinterest. On September 17th, Pinterest announced visual search ads for prominent positions and search results and pin closeups for Performance Plus campaigns. The format combines keyword relevance with visual creative, links to an advertiser’s website and supports lower funnel objective and Performance Plus campaigns. So Pinterest said the beta would reach eligible advertisers across all of its ad markets in the coming weeks. It did not announce immediate access for every advertiser. I’ve recently found success with Pinterest ads, and I think this is pretty neat to infuse its AI power into it. 

I had to do some research on this to really understand what they were even doing. So the visual search part means the image someone is exploring helps Pinterest understand what they’re interested in buying. So basically the new format here combines keyword relevance with its AI understanding of images, products, taste, and intent. Just for context, Pinterest already lets users open a photo and select an item within it to find similar products. So someone could tap on a handbag in an outfit photo without knowing the brand or words to describe the style. And now you’re able to essentially show an ad in a position where you weren’t able to before. So here’s an actual shopping journey. I have one laid out here. So a person searches for a handbag. They open a pin featuring the handbag they like, and now essentially an ad for a similar handbag appears across the top of that image, and then clicking that ad obviously takes them to the advertiser’s website. 

So you can just see how visual search is getting more popular just across all these ad platforms. I use it all the time. I’ll take a picture of something and search on Google. This is a little bit different, but similar in the way that I might type something in for a pair of pants, click on a pair of pants, and then now I’m seeing ads for similar pairs of pants, and that’s not really a keyword-based search. So this keywordless technology is becoming more prominent and it’s important to take that into consideration. The next update that I like is on September 21st, Google Analytics edit host name include filters allowing advertisers or just GA4 users to specify approved domains that can send event data to a property. Previously, this was kind of all done through exclusions only, so this is more of just a nice thing to have. 

So instead of trying to filter out all the spam as it comes in, you can just set the filters that you want. So I just think this is an easy win. Not everybody’s going to use it, but I think it’s important for select people. Next, on September 10th, Amazon Ads announced a partnership with OpenAI to extend advertising campaigns into ChatGPT. The integration is a pilot for select US advertisers, and Amazon did not provide a general rollout date or detailed buying and measurement requirements in the announcement. I mean, this is awesome for advertisers that got into the pilot. I also think it would be amazing for Amazon advertisers to be able to easily get into ChatGPT. I do think Alexa, the AI bot on Amazon does a good job, but a lot of people are searching on ChatGPT, and if you’re able to easily buy a product off Amazon, that seems like a pretty dangerous, I mean dangerous in a good way combination. 

So we’ll be watching that. If it’s something that opens up, we will definitely be interested. I just hope that they give you some sort of control over it because it would be nice, or even reporting over it just to see if it’s actually successful. Another update from Amazon. So on September 29th, Amazon announced branded conversations. So this is an extension of something I believe we previously covered, which were sponsored brand prompts. This basically adds branded product expertise to Alexa for shopping. So customers can ask follow-up questions in a multi-turn conversation and the experience is marked as sponsored. So from what I’ve seen, it’s right under the ad. You want to compare what products out of a product lineup are best for you, which of the coffee machines that you sell, which one automatically grinds the beans, things like that. And so that’s supposed to launch in January 2027. 

So I think that’s neat. I don’t know how much control we’ll have over it. Hopefully we can build accurate product answers and influence that in a way. I’m sure Amazon will give us that functionality. There are other updates in here. I hope everybody does check out the blog post because we do go in depth on… I mean, we have 20 plus updates, probably a lot even more than that, just with all the AI watch stuff. But I’m going to now talk about some of the AI updates that caught my attention in September. So the biggest one for me was Meta launches Muse, a personal AI agent that can shop and complete tasks. So they did that on September 8th. It can fill out forms, book travel, and continue working after the user closes the app. So it runs in a dedicated cloud virtual machine with its own browser. 

So it just makes it easier to continue working. If you close your laptop, it can continue to work. So that’s pretty awesome. This could change some of the buying process the shopper handles directly. I know at Google Marketing Live, we talked about some of the agentic shopping and how things are changing. An ad may create products interest while an agent handles the actual comparison and checkout. So this just makes accurate product details, everything that you have online and on Meta probably more important with this rollout. So don’t sleep on Meta. I think it’s here to stay. I think it’s going to get more popular. I haven’t used Muse that much, but it’s definitely keeping my interest with all the updates that they’ve been rolling out really in the last month. So the one other update that I want to talk about, obviously OpenAI, Anthropic, they’ve all released new models and they’re all great and for the most part better, sometimes cheaper. 

But I do think the dots for OpenAI, that was rolled out on September 29th as well. So basically Dots are agents designed to handle ongoing responsibilities and background work. So the rollout began for pro and business premium users in eligible markets. So this is just another kind of similar to even what Muse is doing. These are just literally agents that can handle ongoing tasks. A dot can keep work going between conversations. It can remember relevant context and it can contact you with results or decisions that need your input. So again, basically always on agents. So let me just explain a bit how I am understanding this works. So you explain the outcome you want, what to do, what sources to use, and when you want updates. You connect the tools that the dot needs, so apps, files, possibly your computer, and then it works in the background. 

So it has its own cloud computer and browser. So cloud tasks can continue when your computer is off. Again, kind of similar to the Muse update, and you can stay involved. So you can check your progress, change priorities and respond when it needs your input. So trying to think of possible uses for your work, even click brief style stuff like advertising news, you could have it give you news every time something big happens. You could use this for reporting, analyze updated performance spreadsheets, meeting preparation, ongoing research. So it’s just a neat new tool. I’m looking into it. I know some people on the team have been testing this out and yeah, AI is advancing and we’re here for it. That’s the click brief for September 2026 and optimize experiments. Stay ahead. We’ll catch you next month. Thanks. Bye.