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Topics we'll cover today:
💠 Shopify's Fall Edition: What Merchants Should Know
💠 ChatGPT Ads Keep Getting Closer to a Full-Fledged Ad Platform
💠 This brand sells in 85+ countries.
💠 Latest news in the DTC space

Late last week, Shopify released its first-ever Fall '26 Edition, called Exponential.

As usual, there are tons of updates.

I went through them and picked the ones I believe are most relevant for DTC brands.

Let's get into it.

This is probably the biggest theme of the release.

Shopify is making it easier for consumers to discover and buy products directly through AI assistants.

A few highlights:

My take?

If AI agents are going to recommend your products, you'd better make sure they understand what you're selling, who it's for, and why someone should buy it.

Product descriptions, attributes, FAQs, and policies are becoming even more important.

Shopify's Campaign Autopilot is expanding to channels like Microsoft Advertising and Snapchat, with X Ads coming soon.

They're also improving marketing reports to better distinguish traffic sources and reduce misattribution.

And Shop Campaigns are expanding to more than 35 new markets.

One thing caught my attention: Shopify is bringing more campaign management directly into its platform.

Does that mean brands should hand over their entire marketing strategy to Shopify?

I wouldn't.

Automating campaign execution is one thing. Knowing which products, offers, and customer segments deserve investment is another.

Shopify is expanding its rollout and experimentation capabilities.

Merchants can coordinate changes to themes, checkout configurations, discounts, and catalogs as part of a single rollout.

And Sidekick can recommend store improvements that have been tested through SimGym.

Think about launching a promotion.

Instead of manually changing your homepage, discounts, and product pricing separately, you can coordinate those changes and schedule them together.

For brands running frequent promotions, this could save a lot of time and reduce execution errors.

Shop is introducing universal checkout.

Customers can add products from different brands to a single cart and complete their purchase in one checkout.

Interesting, right?

Shopify is making Shop more of a shopping destination, where customers can discover products across brands and purchase with less friction.

This could create additional discovery opportunities for merchants, although we'll have to see how much adoption it gets.

A few smaller updates worth mentioning:

That last one is particularly interesting.

The more customer behavior you can analyze alongside your sales data, the better your decisions can become.

My biggest takeaway?

Shopify is investing heavily in two areas: helping brands sell across more surfaces and making their operations easier to manage.

But technology alone won't grow your business.

You still need to understand your customers, have compelling offers, and know where to invest your resources.

Which of these updates are you most excited to test?

Explore the full Shopify Fall '26 Edition here.

—
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Remember when ChatGPT Ads only offered Reach and Traffic campaigns?

That wasn't too long ago.

Since then, we've seen Conversions campaigns, product feeds, and more advanced optimization options.

And this week, OpenAI announced another batch of updates.

Here's what's new:

OpenAI added 26 more countries, bringing the total to 89.

Advertisers in these markets can now get started through Ads Manager or technology partners.

Shopify merchants in all supported ChatGPT Ads markets can now connect their stores directly to Ads Manager.

This allows them to:

For merchants who were considering testing ChatGPT Ads but didn't want to deal with manual catalog and tracking integrations, this removes some friction.

Two interesting updates here.

First, multi-image ads are now available to all advertisers in open beta.

You can upload 4–6 square images to showcase multiple products or different aspects of your offer.

Second, OpenAI is introducing automated creative enhancements.

Using your existing ads and landing pages, ChatGPT can:

That last one caught my attention.

Imagine someone clicks an ad for your brand and gets directed to the product page that's most relevant to what they're looking for.

Of course, we'll have to see how well this works in practice.

ChatGPT is also rolling out wider standard ad cards on desktop.

They'll take up more of the conversation width, giving advertisers more space to showcase their message.

No action is required, as existing campaigns and creative will automatically use the new format.

What interests me most is how quickly ChatGPT Ads is adding capabilities we've been using on established ad platforms for years.

Conversion optimization, product catalogs, creative automation, multiple ad formats, and now broader international availability.

There's still plenty to learn about how this channel performs for DTC brands.

But the barriers to testing it keep getting smaller.

Have you started testing ChatGPT Ads yet? If so, how's it performing?

And their biggest challenge isn't marketing.

Most brands dream of selling their products internationally.

And I get it! Who wouldn't want to open up their business to millions of potential customers in new markets?

The problem is that I think most brands underestimate what it actually takes to get there.

So when I interviewed Julia Garyfallou Northcraft, Senior Director of Marketing and Sales at Timeless Skin Care, I HAD to ask her about their international expansion.

I mean, 85+ countries...there must be a few lessons there, right? 😅

And one thing she told me caught me off guard.

Product registration and labeling alone can sometimes take up to TWO YEARS.

Two years!

And that's just ONE of the things brands need to consider before entering a new market.

There are so many moving parts that have nothing to do with running ads or translating your Shopify store.

And honestly, after hearing Julia explain how they approach international expansion, I think there's a lot that DTC founders can learn from their experience.

We got into the challenges, the misconceptions, and what brands should actually think about BEFORE deciding to expand.

The full episode is now LIVE.

🎧 Tune in.

📰 DoorDash to Acquire Instacart for $17B [read more]
📰 Instagram Offers to Pay Creators for Long-Form Content [read more]
📰 Google Says AI Chatbots Are Hurting Its Bottom Line [read more]

📖 How to Build a Business-First Meta Ad Account
📖 How To Set Up ChatGPT Ads
📖 Where 7–8 Figure Brands Get Stuck (And How To Fix It)
📖 What Do Successful Brands Have In Common?

If you found this interesting, please leave us a review. It’d mean the world to me.

Brian Roisentul is the founder & CEO of BSR, a growth marketing agency he started in 2013 to help e-commerce brands unlock hidden revenue by identifying misalignments between their marketing and customer behavior. He is also the host of The DTC Insider podcast, where he interviews thought leaders, founders, and directors in the e-commerce space.

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