AI's Shopping Invasion, Old-School SEO Wins, Discount Psychology & Outbound's 2026 Playbook

Edition 98

Author

Luru Labs
December 08, 2025

Hello there,

ChatGPT just turned shopping on its head, Clio proved a decade of SEO work pays dividends in the AI era, science revealed how to make tiny discounts irresistible, and outbound got a serious upgrade.

Let's dig in!

ChatGPT's Shopping Research Could Reshape E-Commerce Forever

OpenAI just launched Shopping Research—and it's not just another chatbot feature. The AI builds personalized buyer's guides after asking clarifying questions, then synthesizes product data across the web. What's wild? Reddit threads now carry more weight than your product pages, and Amazon products are completely invisible to the system. Brands need to rethink where they show up online.

Introducing shopping research in ChatGPT

A new shopping experience that helps you find the right products for you.

openai.com/index/chatgpt-shopping-research

How Clio Turned a Decade of SEO Into AI Dominance

While others scramble to figure out "GEO," legal tech company Clio is already winning—appearing in nearly 5,000 monthly AI Overview citations. Their secret? They spent 10+ years building 1,400+ pages of clear, structured content that AI systems naturally trust and cite. The lesson is clear: strong SEO fundamentals become your AI moat.

How Clio’s SEO Dominance Translates into AI Visibility

Clio dominates AI search across Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Learn how their SEO strategy became a GEO playbook—and what B2B brands can steal for AI visibility.

foundationinc.co/lab/clio-content-strategy

The Counter-Intuitive Discount Trick That Boosts Sales 62%

Turns out, making customers work (just a little) for discounts makes them more likely to buy. People who had to enter a promo code were 62.8% more likely to purchase than those who got the discount automatically. Why? We feel like we "earned" it. Just don't overdo the friction—solving 20 CAPTCHAs kills the effect entirely.

Make your discounts a bit harder to get

Requiring a small task to access a discount increases sales (e.g. type a code, solve a CAPTCHA). In experiments, redemption rates were up to 59% higher.

app.sciencesays.com/p/make-your-discounts-a-bit-harder-to-get

The Modern Outbound Playbook That Built $2M ARR

Outbound isn't dead—it just got smarter. Workflows.io shares their exact playbook combining cold calling, signal-based automation, and hyper-manual prospecting for tier-1 accounts. Their best-performing campaign? Reaching out to LinkedIn connections of founders—a 25.4% reply rate from capturing 1.5+ years of content interest. The future is human + AI, not one or the other.

An outbound playbook for 2025

The four pillars powering Workflows.io to $2M ARR and beyond

www.growthunhinged.com/p/an-outbound-playbook-for-2025


That's it for this week. AI is rewriting the rules from shopping to search visibility, but the fundamentals—clear communication, psychological insights, and strategic personalization—matter more than ever.

Got a marketing win or wild idea? Hit reply and let us know. And if this was valuable, share it with a colleague who'd appreciate it.

Catch you next week!

Team ‘Luru