Friday, October 2nd, 2026 – 12:03 am

Window Shopping 

Retail partnerships are rarely as tidy as the press releases make them sound.

Target ended its formal relationship with Instacart after acquiring Shipt in 2018. But shoppers can still use Instacart to order Target products for same-day delivery. Criteo has similarly retained business with retailers, including Walmart, even after those retailers publicly moved away from its platform.

The vendor may lose the marquee role, but not necessarily the account.

Macy’s is taking the reverse route with DoorDash. The department store has quietly offered DoorDash delivery through its own site and app for several years, but now it’s making the partnership much more visible. Macy’s fashion and beauty products will be available for purchase directly in the DoorDash app, The Wall Street Journal reports.

DoorDash has struck similar deals with Timberland, Vans, Victoria’s Secret, Steve Madden and Anthropologie. The company is building a network of apparel and beauty retailers that can fulfill orders quickly from their stores, not unlike a mall repurposed as a distributed delivery hub.

The business underneath those partnerships is retail media. DoorDash gets more merchandise, shoppers and signals to monetize, while retailers get another route to demand, plus access to DoorDash’s delivery and advertising infrastructure.

And the relationship can remain quiet or become consumer-facing, depending on what each side needs.

Mind The Measurement Gap

Nearly eight months after ChatGPT first launched ads, it’s still ironing out some kinks.

Namely, measurement.

Although OpenAI launched a host of measurement solutions back in May, including its own CAPI, it’s not necessarily tracking all conversions and engagement accurately.

Digital marketing agency Accuracast, for one, found that OpenAI seems to be underreporting conversions, noting that the platform reported 100 clicks during a period of time when its own measurement tools only reported 20, according to Digiday. OpenAI couldn’t explain the discrepancy.

Other agencies, including Jellyfish, and tech platforms, such as AdRoll, say they haven’t seen click discrepancies – but this doesn’t mean they’re satisfied. For example, Swedish digital agency Web Guide Partner has expressed concern over how long it takes to receive insights (24 to 36 hours versus just a few on Google).

But the issue isn’t just how long it takes to get insights. Many advertisers haven’t turned on conversion tracking at all. Doing so requires agreeing to OpenAI’s tracking terms, which some legal teams are wary of because of potential liability and concerns about how customer data might be used.

Party In The PSA

Happy election season! 

The Trump administration is dipping into taxpayer coffers to run pro-Trump ads on TV networks, including Fox News, CBS, MS Now and CNN, Variety reports. 

So much for Trump blocking those last two networks from covering the White House, we guess. 

The administration spent nearly $2.9 million so far to run three different spots ahead of next month’s midterm elections, according to ad intelligence firm AdImpact. A White House spokesperson referred to the ads, in which the president vows to battle socialism and touts his policy agenda as public service announcements.

It’s a questionable justification for using taxpayer dollars to promote the sitting president right before an election. But Brendan Carr, chair of the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission, says he sees no issue with the ads. At least, they aren’t as big a deal for Carr as late night talk show hosts interviewing a Democratic Senate candidate.

As for MS Now, some of the liberal-leaning network’s staff are surprised and peeved that it’s running pro-Trump commercials, Status reports. But some argue that the ads did not violate the standards set by MS Now parent company Versant, which explicitly accept “divergent points of view” related to politics.

Trump’s crackdown on MS Now’s coverage is certainly awkward timing, but networks need to make money somehow. After all, only a few months have passed since Versant spun off from Comcast in an effort to bolster its monetization.

But Wait! There’s More! 

Very few marketers – just 6%! – say they’re getting a big payoff from AI. So what are the marketers seeing results doing differently?  [Business Insider]

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos says the platform “is not growing as fast as [he wants] it to.” (Well, it might help if Netflix stopped getting rid of everyone’s favorite shows.) [Hollywood Reporter]

Who should be held responsible when an AI system goes rogue? [NYT]

Shopping platform Swap Commerce acquires Vizby, a Shopify-native service that helps brands show up in AI search responses. [release]

You’re Hired!

OpenX appoints ex-Roku exec John Rogers as SVP of global publisher development. [release]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.