What changed in marketing this week | Your ad platforms are switching things on for you

Three ad platforms have sent advertisers some version of the same message in the past fortnight. Meta, OpenAI and Google are each turning on an AI feature inside your ads unless you say no.

None of these changes is bad on its own. Some will probably help. But on by default means someone else is making a call about your brand, your landing pages and your budget, and most business owners won't notice until the results look different.

While the ad platforms pushed more automation, new data landed on how much traffic AI search sends. Less than the hype suggests. Better quality than you might expect.

Quick answer: Meta will add product browsing to existing Facebook and Instagram ads from 28 October unless you opt out. OpenAI will switch on creative enhancements for self-serve ChatGPT ads from 30 October. Google made sourced videos a default in Performance Max and added new retention and high-value customer goals. New studies show ChatGPT sends a small share of Google's traffic, but it converts well.

In this post

• Meta will add product browsing to your ads on 28 October
• ChatGPT ads will start adapting your copy on 30 October
• Performance Max is pulling in your videos and images
• Google Ads gives you more control over new and returning customers
• AI search traffic is small, and it converts
• The bigger trend
• What I'd be doing about it
• FAQ

Meta will add product browsing to your ads on 28 October

What happened

Meta has been telling advertisers: "Starting October 28, 2026, we'll add product browsing to your existing ads." PPC Land reproduced the notice on 15 October. When someone taps an affected Facebook or Instagram ad, they may see an in-app page with product info and suggested items before they get to your website.

Meta's case for it: "On average, businesses saw 3% more conversions with in-app product browsing experiences." That figure comes from an August experiment across roughly 117,700 advertisers. Meta doesn't define the conversion metric.

As Relevant Audience pointed out, Meta hasn't published a Help Centre article, and the notice doesn't say which markets, formats or objectives are in scope, or whether new ads will default to on.

Why it matters

The journey changes from tap ad → your website to tap ad → Meta product page → maybe your website.

For an online store with a clean catalogue, that extra page might lift sales. For a business where the website does the persuading (a service, anything that needs a quote), you've added a step you don't control. A 3% average across 117,700 advertisers says little about your account.

What to do

• Decide before Wednesday 28 October. Use the opt-out in Meta's notice, or switch product browsing off per ad in Advantage+ Creative and Destination settings.
• Check each ad account separately. Meta hasn't said whether the button covers more than one.
• If you leave it on, run it as a test: one ad set with it, one without, and compare sales in your own backend rather than Meta's reporting.

Where people land shapes what they do next. I wrote about that in what happens when your landing page becomes a conversation, and it's part of every account review our performance media team runs.

ChatGPT ads will start adapting your copy on 30 October

What happened

Search Engine Roundtable reported on 20 October that OpenAI emailed advertisers: "Starting Friday, October 30, 2026, we'll enable creative enhancements for your new and existing self-serve campaigns." Creative enhancements can write new headlines and descriptions, resize images, translate text and send people to a different page on your site, adapted to the conversation they're in.

The line that matters most: "When enabled, these ads can run automatically without requiring you to review or approve each version." You can opt out in Ads Manager's account settings, and existing account or campaign opt-outs stay in place.

OpenAI also expanded ChatGPT ads to 26 more countries, 89 in total, and said over 100,000 advertisers have run campaigns since launch, according to PPC Land. That's a cumulative count, not active advertisers. It added larger visual formats, a redesigned conversions page and weekly performance emails.

Why it matters

If you're in finance, health, legal or any category where wording carries risk, an ad that rewrites itself without sign-off is a compliance question before it's a performance one. For everyone else, it's a brand question. Would you approve every version OpenAI might write?

What to do

• If you're testing ChatGPT ads, open account settings before Friday and make a deliberate choice.
• If you leave enhancements on, make sure every page on your site could stand on its own as a landing page.
• Use the new conversions page to check which campaigns optimise for real outcomes.

Clicks from a new channel can look great until you check what they turn into. That's why I'd judge this on customer quality, not cost per click.

Performance Max is pulling in your videos and images

What happened

On 23 October Search Engine Roundtable spotted a new Sourced videos setting in Google Ads. Google's help page says: "Sourced videos are enabled by default for all new campaigns." Google's AI pulls up to 10 videos per asset group from sources you approve, such as your social accounts, your landing page and your linked YouTube channel. Some existing campaigns may have had it switched on during a platform update. PPC News Feed caught the help page change first.

Images are next. The Google Ads Developer Blog says that from 4 December 2026, image extraction will be on by default for new Performance Max campaigns, "even if Dynamic Image Extensions are disabled at the account level." Google also reminds advertisers to confirm they hold the rights to landing page images they let Google use.

Why it matters

Old Instagram reel → new Google ad. That might be fine. It might also be a promo that ended last year, a staff member who's moved on, or a stock photo you licensed for your website only.

What to do

• Open asset optimisation in each Performance Max campaign and check whether Sourced videos is on.
• Review which sources you've approved in your video portfolio.
• Before 4 December, audit the images on your landing pages for licensing and anything out of date.

Google filling gaps with whatever it finds is a symptom of a bigger problem: most brands don't have enough distinct creative. I unpack that in why brands keep producing more of the same content.

Google Ads gives you more control over new and returning customers

What happened

On 22 October Google announced three updates to customer lifecycle goals, all rolling out this month:

• High value mode for Shopping. New Customer High Value Mode, already in Search and Performance Max, comes to Shopping campaigns.
• Retention goals. Now rolling out for Performance Max, Search and Shopping, with Re-engagement Mode (lapsed customers), Loyalty Mode (loyalty members) and Retention Only Mode (just the segments you choose).
• Percentage multipliers. Bids scale with cart size instead of a flat boost, across Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen.

Google's example is a jeweller setting a 20% boost, so it bids in proportion whether the cart is $500 or $50. Search Engine Roundtable noted percentage multipliers are coming out of beta.

Why it matters

This is the kind of automation I like. You tell Google which customers matter, and it bids for them. The catch: Google can't chase lapsed customers it can't recognise, so you need a decent customer list.

What to do

• Upload or refresh your customer list in Google Ads before Black Friday.
• Pick one goal per campaign. Re-engagement suits most retailers heading into Christmas.
• If your order values vary a lot, test percentage multipliers on one campaign first.

Related reading: why your first-party data might matter more than your targeting. Winning back past customers and finding new ones should be one plan, and that's how we approach demand generation.

AI search traffic is small, and it converts

What happened

On 21 October Marie Haynes published 12 months of GA4 data from 100 websites, covering more than 145 million sessions. ChatGPT sent just 0.62% of the sessions Google organic search did. ChatGPT visitors converted at 13.8%, against 3.02% for Google organic. Google still drove 96.5% of conversions. Her headline: "GEO is a distraction."

She wasn't alone. SEO Works benchmarked 95 websites and found organic search sent 39 times more traffic than AI assistants, with 3.2 AI conversions for every 100 from organic search. Kevin Indig found no reliable link between AI visibility and branded or direct traffic across 12 sites, as Search Engine Roundtable summarised.

Why it matters

I half agree with Marie. If you were about to pull budget out of Google SEO to chase ChatGPT mentions, these numbers should stop you.

But I wouldn't call AI visibility a distraction. Small volume and high conversion rates usually mean people arrive further along in their decision. Analytics also undercounts AI visits; ChatGPT links lost their UTM tags for a few days only last week. And the work that gets you cited (clear pages, direct answers, a credible brand) is mostly the work that helps you rank in Google anyway.

What to do

• In GA4, compare AI referral conversions with Google organic conversions for your own site.
• Keep Google SEO as the core of your search budget.
• Treat AI visibility as an extension of that work rather than a separate project.

If your business doesn't show up when people ask AI tools for a recommendation, start with why your company might not appear in ChatGPT recommendations. We run search engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation as one programme for exactly this reason.

The bigger trend: the defaults are deciding more of your marketing

Meta changes where your ad sends people. OpenAI rewrites your ad. Google pulls creative from your social accounts. All three switch on unless you act. Google's retention goals use the same AI on very different terms: you set the rules.

Automation you direct tends to work for you. Automation you inherit works for the platform first. The businesses that do well next year will have clear answers to the questions platforms now ask: who's a good customer, which page should someone land on, what are we happy to say. Those answers come from a joined-up marketing strategy, not from a settings page.

What I'd be doing about it

1. Decide on Meta product browsing for each ad account before Wednesday 28 October.
2. Check the creative enhancements setting in ChatGPT Ads before Friday 30 October.
3. Turn Sourced videos off, or approve your sources on purpose, in every Performance Max campaign.
4. Audit landing page images for rights and relevance before 4 December.
5. Upload a current customer list to Google Ads and try one retention goal before Christmas.
6. Compare AI and Google organic conversions in GA4 before moving any search budget.

Want a second set of eyes?

Most of this week's changes take ten minutes each to check. The harder part is knowing what you want switched on, and why.

If you'd like us to look over your Meta, Google and ChatGPT ad settings before these defaults kick in, get in touch with the team at Purple People. That's usually where the interesting gaps start.