AI wins the test. Humans win the close.

This This is the Billiondoll Sellers podcast. Your go-to source for cutting edge strategies and success stories from the world of Amazon and e-commerce. Buckle up and get ready to take your Amazon business to new heights. Don't forget to subscribe to the Billiondoll Sellers Newsletter. Welcome your host. >> Welcome your host, Kevin King. >> Hey everyone, welcome to the Billiondoll Sellers podcast. I'm your host, Kevin King, and today is Monday, July 27th, 2026. We've got a big one for you today, so let's jump right in. On today's show, I'm going to break down the AI ads playbook and why the smart money right now is testing with AI but closing with humans. We'll also get into how Amazon just quietly showed you the way manual PPC ends, the tariffs coming back from the dead under a brand new legal justifications, Amazon's quietest $60 billion business that most sellers aren't even playing, and a whole lot more. Before we get going real quick, the marketing misfits just dropped a webinar replay you're going to want to watch, and it's all about why AI isn't recommending your sites. Search has fundamentally changed, and most brands honestly have no idea it's even happening. So, in this replay, they get into why traditional search is dying and what's replacing it. How Google's redesigned askbar changes, what shows up above the fold and how to become one of the three to five brands that actually appear in an AI overview. They'll also walk you through how to audit your own website, whether that's Shopify or a blog for AEL readiness. And they share real data on how AI traffic converts up to nine times better than traditional search. And here's the kicker. Everyone who watches gets a complimentary $497 AEO audit of their website thrown in. You can watch the whole replay over on YouTube and I'll drop a link for you in the show notes. All right, now for today's stunt Bezos question. So, back in May, US importers received $22 billion in tariff refunds. 22 billion. Here's the question. How much did they get back in refunds in June? Think about it. I'll give you the answer at the end of the show. All right, let's get into it. And I want to start with the story. This whole episode is named after because it's the biggest make money lever in AI right now and it's also the one with the loudest hype and the most expensive mistakes. I'm talking about AI video for paid ads. And the rule I want you to walk away with is this. AI wins the test. Humans win the close. So, let me give you the numbers you can actually trust and then the ones you should ignore. First, Meta's AI powered ad tools just hit a $10 billion annualized run rate, and that's growing roughly three times faster than its ads business overall with new ranking models driving real measurable lifts and clicks and conversions. And that's per Nana's own newsroom. Then there's the head-to-head that everybody should study. The folks at Revenue Cat ran an AI digital twin avatar ad up against a real human creator. And the avatar hit 87% of the human's conversion rate at $20 per avatar versus $500 per creator with a 31% lower cost per acquisition. They even ran a Brazilian Portuguese dubbed version. And it came in an $8 CPA, a 4.5% click-through rate, and a 2.1 times return on ad spend. So read that carefully. AI got about 90% of the result at about 4% of the cost. It did not beat the human on quality. It won on economics. Now, the only independent academic study on this, and this was Tibula working with Columbia, Harvard, Tom, and Carnegie Melon, found that AI ads averaged a 0.76% click-through rate versus 65% for the human ones. So, real, but pretty modest. And then here's the numbers you should ignore. Those AI ad got 45% higher conversion, 3.4 ROS stats that are floating around out there. Those are almost all anonymous agency blog claims with no name brand attached to them. modest and real beats spectacular and fabricated every single time. So plan around the modest number. So here's why the rule works. AI UGC dominates on volume, on speed, and on cost per variation. You can generate dozens of ad angles for the price of one single human shoot. And by the way, Rob Green is doing a workshop at Market Masters 4 next month on how to do exactly this at scale. So keep an eye out for that one. But and this is the important part and trust dependent categories. So, think finance, health, beauty. Real humans still convert better at the bottom of the funnel. There is one first party $100,000 test where human UGC won the clickthrough 2.4% to 1.9% AI won on cost driven ROAS and the hybrid of the two actually beat both of them. And if you want to picture how this runs in practice, think of as a loop. You generate wide, so dozens of variations across three or four different angles. Then you test them cheap on small equal budgets. And you judge purely on cost per acquisition, not on likes. Then you kill the losers fast with no sentiment. You scale or reshoot your top two or three winners and trust category. That's where you bring in a real human to close. In the big one, you log the winning angle, not just the clip. So your next batch starts from what already worked. Now, I've also got a plug-and-play prompt in the written newsletter that I'll spin up about 15 UGC ad scripts for you across all those different angles. So, if you want that, go grab it there. And here's a number that actually matters because cheap AI video will lie to you if you count generations instead of finished usable converting videos. So, your real cost per finished video is your base generations plus the regenerations you know you'll need times your per generation cost plus your editing and stitching time at your hourly rate, all divided by the videos that actually ship. So, budget 15 to 25% for regenerations. That $150 clip everybody brags about is usually a $5 to $8 finished video once you count the misses and the assembly. Still way cheaper than a human shoot, but now at least you're not lying to yourself. So bottom line, use AI as the wide top of your funnel and your cheap testing engine. Just don't ask it to be the trusted face that closes a big sale as it's not there yet and the data says your customers can tell. All right, let's take a quick look at some interesting stats. And the theme here is we are still really early. So only 2.2% 2% of US households currently pay for AI. That's it. But here's what's interesting. When you look at the trend line, that number has been climbing basically straight up since the start of 2023 from almost nothing to that 2.2% today. So, the paid AI habit is real and it's compounding fast. It's just nowhere near saturated yet. There is a ton of runway left here. Okay, next up, and this is a big one cuz Amazon just quietly showed you exactly how manual PPC ends. So, the first piece of it just landed in ad console. is a new targeting strategy beta sitting inside your manual sponsored products campaigns and it's just one little checkbox that's really easy to scroll right past. Don't because if you flip it on, Amazon's AI starts adding up to four new keywords and product targets every 12 to 24 hours all at below your current bids based on your existing targets and what's worked for similar products. And it also pauses targets. And honestly, that's where Amazon kind of shows its hand because these are the exact rules the algorithm uses to decide that a target isn't working. So, it's no impressions in 3 days, no clicks in 7 days, over 15% of your daily budget spent without converting, or 20 or more clicks with no conversion in 14 days. Screenshot those. Seriously, because when everything runs on AI, that right there is the logic deciding your spend. Now, why is Amazon doing this and where is it heading? Well, a few things. First, dual proved it. Performance Max showed the automation grows ad revenue faster than any bidding interface ever could. And Amazon's behind on that curve and they know it. Second, the incentive is dead simple. Every keyword the AI adds is another auction Amazon gets to monetize that at or below your current bid line caps your risk. It does nothing to cap their coverage. And third, you're the training data. Perform well for some of our products means every campaign that opts in is teaching the algorithm. So, Amazon learning from all of us at once. And the playbook from here kind of writes itself. Optin beta first, visible guard rails to build up trust. Then it becomes the default. then targeting merges with the ROS based bidding that's already sitting in your console and then eventually you just hand Amazon a budget and goal and it does the rest. So manual PPC isn't dying today but Amazon just told us how it ends. And credit for spying this one goes to BDSS Dream 100 member Mansour Nuzi whose partner and director of advertising over at Incrementum Digital. He posted it inside the billiondollar sellers club. All right, let's talk about today's software tool of the day. And this one is basically damage control for something Amazon's about to do to your listings. So, Amazon is cutting every product title down to 75 characters. Uh, whatever doesn't fit just gets chopped off. And here's the danger. If the keyword that gets trimmed is the one actually printing your sales, well, your ranking goes right along with it. So, there's a new skill from BDSS Dream 100 member Tominovich that basically handles the uh surgery for you. It rewrites your existing titles into that new 75 character format and it keeps your highest value keywords right up front where the algorithm and the shopper both see them first. It also writes your new item highlights which is the field that just inherited everything in your title can no longer carry. And it keeps what actually makes you money so the keywords driving your sales stay. It's the filler that gets cut. It's a title diet for your listings. Basically, same muscle, less fat. Uh there's a link to grab the skill in the show notes. Okay, this next one is a big deal for anybody who imports and the headline is basically the tariffs are dead, long live the tariffs. So, if you were hoping that the Supreme Court striking down Trump's liberation day tariffs meant your landed costs were finally coming down, I'm sorry, but that window just slammed shut. So, here's what happened. Rise a clock ran out on Friday on that temporary 10% global tariff which was imposed under section 122 and legally maxes out at 150 days. The US rolled out its replacement, fresh tariffs on 60 trade partners, and this time they're signing forced labor violations under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. And the group of countries covered, which includes China, Canada, and the EU, accounts for 99.4% of all US imports. So, if you import anything, you're in it. Um, so here's the new math. The duties range from 10% up to 12.5%. So depending on your sourcing country, this is either a wash versus the 10% that just expired or it's a bump right on top of it. There are some exemptions. Oil and gas, fertilizer, a lot of goods that just aren't produced in the US and products that qualify for duty-free status under USMCA. And steel and aluminum keep their existing separate tariffs, but they don't get this one stacked on top. And good behavior actually gets rewarded here. Countries that tightened up their forced labor enforcement after tariffs were proposed last month got lower rates. India for example was Pennsylvania at 12.5% and landed at 10. So expect a lot more countries to negotiate down. Now you might be wondering why forced labor and the answer is because section 301 is the legal tool that survived. The Supreme Court ruled that IAPA didn't authorize the tariffs and it forced the administration to refund the importers who paid them. Section 122 expire on Friday, but section 301 targets unfair trade practices and forced labor qualifies. So legal justification changed. The bill you pay at the port did not. And the reaction was immediate. Australia called the tariffs completely unjustified. Brazil is heading to the WTO and threatening retaliatory tariffs of its own. And a group of US small businesses filed suit the very same day to try and block them. And meanwhile, Bloomberg is describing a triple whammy of tariffs, energy costs, and AI spending all aggravating inflation. And that's with the midterms coming up on November 3rd. So, what does this actually mean for you? A few things. Um, first, stop waiting for relief. This administration has now rebuilt its tariff wall three separate times under three different legal authorities. So whatever the courts do to this version, just assume a fourth one exists and price your 2027 POS with tariffs baked right in. Second, there are two more waves already queued up. The STR has an open probe into whether 16 countries and that's 70% of US imports have overproduced goods and push down global prices and that's aimed squarely at the lowcost manufacturing that most sellers source from. There's also a separate wave plan that targets the EU over its fines on US tech giants. And third, watch your sourcing country status closely. Rates move between the proposal and the final list based on enforcement steps. So if your facto's country drops from 12.5% down to 10 or gets hit in an overp production wave, that's margin appearing and disappearing without you touching a thing. The tariff era, it's not a storm to way out anymore. It's the climate. All right, let me tell you real quick about something that can help you get on to page one of Amazon and it comes down to your restock planning and your influencers. So, there's a platform called Stack Influence and what it does is automate micro influencer product seating collaborations at scale and I mean thousands of collabs a month. The whole idea is you pay your influencers with product instead of negotiating fees. You drive external traffic to your Amazon listings to push your rankings up. You get full rights image and video UGC to build your brand with. And it's 100% automated, so you're not lifting a finger to manage it. And the results are pretty wild. Top brands like Magic Spoon, Unilver, and Mary Ruth Organics have used it to get to number one page positioning on Amazon and to grow their monthly revenue as much as 13 times in as little as 2 months. And Blueland after they raised on Shark Tank turned to Stack Influence and pulled a 13 times return on investment, scaling up their influencers. So if you want to multiply your organic recurring revenue this year, you can get 10% off by signing up this month. and there's a link in the show notes. Okay, next up, and I love this one because nobody's really talking about it. It's Amazon's quietest $60 billion business. So, while everybody's obsessing over AI shopping assistance, Marketplace Pulse is reporting that Amazon business just hit $60 billion in annualized gross sales. And that's up from 35 billion back in 2023 and just 25 billion in 2021. So, as a standalone marketplace, that would rank among the largest e-commerce platforms anywhere on Earth. And it's closing in on Amazon's own $68.6 billion ad business. And the compounding has been almost machine-like. It's growing roughly 18% a year since 2021, which is double the 9% that Amazon's overall GMV grew last year. And it's lapping the 5 to 8% pace that mature US e-commerce has kind of settled into. But here's the part that actually matters for you. Amazon says more than half of Amazon business sales come from third party sellers. So that's something in the region of $30 billion flowing to sellers and most sellers aren't even playing. So why is the B2B side wide open? Well, a few reasons. First, all the recent investment went to the buyers, not the sellers. Amazon just rolled out an AI account assistant, savings insights for both discount analysis, spending online monitoring, dedicated delivery trucks for loading docs in 13 states, and upon business bundle with CrowdStrike, Besto, and QuickBooks. Meanwhile, the seller side tools, so your business only pricing, your tier quantity discounts, your custom quote requests, those have barely changed in years. So, the demand side got completely rebuilt and the supply side is still just waiting for competition. And second, the demand shows up through listings you already maintain. You're looking at higher average order values from buyers that include hospitals, universities, governments, and 97 of the Fortune 100. And there's no new catalog required to get it. And third, this is growth you don't have to buy at auction. With 49% of sellers naming marketplace fees as their top margin concern and another 46% pointing at advertising, sales you capture through quantity discounts on inventory you already have just beat sales you buy through every price your ad clicks. Now, the structural reason this hasn't exploded even faster is that B2B procurement runs on approval chains, POS, payment terms, and the consumer marketplace never had to solve any of that. So, Amazon spent 11 years digitizing the easy end of a market that's multiples bigger than consumer spending. At the current trajectory, Amazon business crosses a hundred billion before the end of the decade. So, the sellers who set up their B2B pricing right now are the ones who get to ride it all the way there. All right, before we wrap up, here are a few more hot picks for you. First, Amazon storefront builder will now grade your content quality for AI. Second, a Google powered AI assistant is doubling conversion rates. Third, Amazon is planning to incubate 2,000 new Chinese $150 million brands. Fourth, it is an online seller bill of rights in the works that targets payment holds and account suspensions. And fifth, Amazon is cutting its inbound seller deadlines for the Q4 holiday shopping season. So, pay attention to that one. And you can find the links to all these stories in our written newsletter over at billiondollarcellers.com. And here's your parting shot for today. And it comes from Spanx founder Sara Blakeley. She said, 'D don't be intimidated by what you don't know. And if you've been listening to all this AI and tariff talk today, feeling a little behind, well, that one's for you. Finally, remember that Stump Bezos question from the top of the show. How much did US importers get back in tariff refunds in June? Well, after 22 billion in May, the answer for June is $49.2 billion. So, yeah, the refunds more than doubled. All right, that's all for today, folks. Thank you as always for riding along. Have a great week and I'll see you again on Thursday. This is Kevin King signing off from the Billiondoll Sellers podcast.