{"id":2011,"date":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T00:00:00","slug":"ai-made-your-marketing-faster-not-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/05\/ai-made-your-marketing-faster-not-better\/","title":{"rendered":"AI made your marketing faster, not better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to this week’s Side Income Roundup<\/strong>, Monday, October 5.<\/p>\n

This week is about working smarter with AI: using it to sharpen your thinking, seeing whether it surfaces your products, and knowing which pages it trusts to make a recommendation.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udde0 Why faster AI content just exposes weak thinking
\n\ud83d\uded2 See how often AI shopping answers show your products, free
\n\ud83d\udd0d Find how much of your site traffic is really bots
\n\ud83d\udce6 An eBay ad test with a surprising winner
\n\ud83e\udd1d The review pages AI trusts when it recommends what to buy<\/p>\n

Let’s get into it.<\/p>\n

\n

THIS WEEK’S BIG IDEA<\/h2>\n

\ud83e\udde0 AI made marketing faster, not better<\/a><\/p>\n

AI can turn out a week of content in an afternoon, but speed only exposes fuzzy thinking. Hand it a vague brief and it will confidently write something polished and off-target, without ever telling you what was missing.<\/p>\n

The bottleneck was never typing speed, it’s decision quality. So before you prompt, get clear on who the piece is for, the one job it has to do, and how you’ll know it worked. Do that and AI turns from a fast writer into a sharper one.<\/p>\n

Our Take:<\/em><\/strong> Before you ask AI to write your next email or product description, tell it who it’s for and what one action it should drive.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

TOOLS OF THE WEEK<\/h2>\n

\ud83d\uded2 Google Merchant Center now shows your AI shopping visibility<\/a>
\nA free report shows how often your products appear in Google’s AI shopping answers next to competing brands, so you can see whether AI shoppers are finding you or passing you by.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udd0d Microsoft Clarity sorts your bot traffic by page<\/a>
\nClarity’s new free view groups the bots hitting your site by page type, so you can tell how much of your traffic is real shoppers and which pages the crawlers are hammering.<\/p>\n

Our Take:<\/em><\/strong> Open Merchant Center and check your AI share of voice, then turn on Clarity’s bot view so you’re optimizing for real shoppers, not crawlers.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

TODAY’S QUICK WINS<\/h2>\n

\ud83d\udce6 An eBay Promoted Listings test where not promoting won<\/a>
\nA fresh side-by-side test found listings promoted at a 5% ad rate earned about 15% less each than the ones left alone. If you promote everything by default, you could be paying for sales you’d make anyway.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude9a Mercari raises its shipping label rates on October 19<\/a>
\nMercari’s prepaid USPS, UPS and FedEx labels get more expensive from October 19, with some rates up more than 50%, which quietly eats into the margin on anything you ship after that.<\/p>\n

Our Take:<\/em><\/strong> Re-test your eBay Promoted Listings rate against an unpromoted control, and if you sell on Mercari, print your labels before rates jump October 19.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

FROM OMC<\/h2>\n

\ud83d\udcdd Same Clicks, 2-3x the Commissions: The Bonus Stack That Wins Black Friday<\/a><\/p>\n

Every affiliate pushes the same Black Friday deals with the same links to the same inboxes. This post shows the one lever you actually control that can pay two to three times more from the exact same clicks.<\/p>\n

Our Take:<\/em><\/strong> Before Black Friday, add one bonus to the affiliate offer you’re already promoting so the same clicks can pay two to three times more.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

AI SPOTLIGHT<\/h2>\n

\ud83e\udd1d 86% of AI product picks cite a commercial source<\/a><\/p>\n

When GetCited checked 106,000 links that ChatGPT, Google AI Overview and Perplexity cited for “best product” questions, most pointed to affiliate review and comparison pages, and 86% of answers leaned on at least one. <\/p>\n

Our Take:<\/em><\/strong> Search “best [your product]” in ChatGPT and note which review sites it cites. Those are the exact pages to pitch for a mention.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

UNTIL NEXT WEEK…<\/h2>\n

Here’s your short list this week:<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udde0 Give AI the audience and the goal before you prompt
\n\ud83d\uded2 Check your AI share of voice in Merchant Center
\n\ud83d\udce6 Re-test one eBay Promoted Listings rate against no promotion
\n\ud83e\udd1d Ask ChatGPT which review sites it cites for your product<\/p>\n

Most take a few minutes, and the Mercari rate change is the one that costs you if you wait.<\/p>\n

Talk soon,
\nAidan<\/p>\n

P.S. Next week, a Black Friday prep move most sellers leave until it’s too late to matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Use AI to think, not just type, plus who AI cites when it recommends products and two free ways to check your visibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-letter"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Aidan","author_link":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/author\/admin_omc\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Newsletter<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Use AI to think, not just type, plus who AI cites when it recommends products and two free ways to check your visibility.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinemarketingclassroom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}