Comment Section: Goldmine or Garbage?

Welcome back to Sell! Sell! Sell! 🛍️

Hello friends!

I went to Creator Economy East in NYC last week, surrounded by brands, creators, and plenty of debate on how to measure influencer marketing success, from top-funnel EMV to mid-funnel engagement to bottom-funnel conversion.

Aside from that, another topic that stood out to me was the potential power of the comment section, which is a debate I’ll dig into later, but first—let’s get into this week’s headlines.

🚨 This Week’s Headlines

(August 12th)

🦅 American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney Ad Controversy Isn’t Moving the Sales Needle

We’ve all seen American Eagle’s recent ad campaign, but early performance data suggests sales remain largely unchanged. According to Adweek, while the campaign drove visibility and conversation, it hasn’t produced a corresponding lift in transactions. The retailer has not yet commented on the sales impact.

📎 Read more 

👗 Zara did a live-shopping event to launch the latest collection

Zara’s August “New In” edit wasn’t just a product release, it was a full live-stream event. Fast fashion has always thrived on speed, but this is about syncing product launches with live digital storytelling to spark urgency and FOMO. Expect to see more retailers fold live formats into their drops, especially as younger shoppers get accustomed to buying directly from streams rather than scrolling product grids.

📎 Read more in WhoWhatWear or watch the post-live here

💄 How Beauty Brands Pick Their Creators in 2025

Follower count is out, fit is in. Beauty brands are now vetting creators with a mix of authenticity checks, engagement metrics, and alignment with product strategy — and they’re applying this logic across the funnel. It’s less about a single viral moment and more about building a steady drumbeat of awareness and conversion with creators who can do both.

📎 Read more in Adweek

🤖 AI Commerce Watch

(new segment?)

GPT-5 Just Dropped, and AI Commerce Gets both Weirder and Smarter

OpenAI just dropped GPT-5, and while the internet is buzzing about its shiny new tricks (and messy launch), the more interesting story for us is how AI is quietly embedding itself into commerce.

You’ve probably seen the wild AI videos, Gandhi and Cleopatra selling shampoo in India, where brands are bringing historical figures back as spokespeople.

While the initial use of AI influencers feels surreal and gimmicky, it does make a lot of economic sense: no travel, infinite scalability, and total message control. But does it actually work for brand building and sales? Time will tell…

Meanwhile, ThredUp is using AI less for splashy content and more for practical problem-solving. The online thrift store and resale platform has rolled out tools like Shop Similar and Style Chat, which it says have helped drive a 74% increase in new buyer acquisition and an 18% lift in conversion rates over the past year.

The tech is designed to make secondhand shopping easier to navigate—whether that’s finding a match for something you’ve seen online, or asking for a head-to-toe outfit for a specific occasion. It’s a reminder that some of the biggest AI wins in commerce may come from improving the customer journey, not just creating attention-grabbing campaigns.

And as AI reshapes execution, discovery is shifting too. Gen Z and Alpha now search TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest before Google, forcing brands to optimize for social search, with platform-specific keywords, video-first creative, and every post ready to shop.

🔭 Trend Watch

Let’s dive into the comment section

Last week at the Creator Economy conference, the general theme was: how do we actually measure success in influencer marketing? From CPM (Cost Per Mille) to EMV (Earned Media Value), every speaker wanted a metric with both precision and meaning. Most still felt like a combination between vanity metrics mixed with “influencer marketing is still the wild west”.

However, something that piqued my interest more came from Kelly Shah-McDonnell, VP of Digital Commerce at e.l.f. Beauty who talked at length about how to use the comment section to their advantage.

As the No. 1 beauty brand on TikTok Shop, e.l.f. Beauty clearly sees comments as living consumer feedback—a real-time pulse, not passive vanity. It’s the kind of first-person insight that can inspire product innovation, creative direction, and customer connection.

Feels like a given goldmine!

Then (here comes Debbie Downer) I read Jack Appleby’s newsletter this week—and his perspective offered a counterweight.

He argues that most people just watch content without commenting, and that comments aren’t necessarily a reliable signal of interest or intent. He warns against overvaluing noisy threads that mostly reflect social acknowledgment, not genuine buying intent.

It’s a version of what’s known as the Engagement Inequality or the 90-9-1 Rule:

• 90% of social users are passive observers, they watch but never engage.

• 9% will give a low-effort like or share but skip commenting.

• 1% are the vocal minority who actively comment and post.

If you believe that 1% speaks for the other 90%, you risk making decisions based on the loudest voices, not the majority’s behavior. Those comments can be skewed by personal motivations that have little to do with your content—or your brand.

So what’s the takeaway?

Engagement is complex. Comments can be gold, rich with emotion, context, and cues — but they’re also fickle, not always representative, and shouldn’t be the only signal brands rely on.

That said, I’d put myself in the 9% bucket, I rarely comment. I read the general tone of the comment section, and if I agree with the sentiment, I stay quiet. But if I disagree, I’m far more likely to jump in with my two cents.

Which makes me think: if a brand’s comment section is full of agreement, maybe that 1% of vocal participants is more representative than we give them credit for. But if the thread is full of dissent, it could be a sign that the quiet 90% feels differently — and you’re only hearing from the outliers.

Comments are a signal, but context matters just as much as count. What do you guys think?

Next week I’ll be trading my desk for the Adriatic Sea 🌊, so no newsletter while I’m floating somewhere between Croatia and Italy.

See you back here in a couple of weeks, hopefully with a tan and some fresh ideas.