Hey Cowboys,
Happy Wednesday! Big news dropped today. You’re gonna love this.
Today’s lineup 👇 and stories.
Wallets, Growth, & the Day's Stories
Nate Lagos joins the cowboys as cohost today! We‘re chatting with Dana on scaling PROOF Wallets from a $1,500 bootstrap to $18M in year one, and Mike on Layers, the growth stack he built after six years running the ads product at Snap.
Nate Lagos - Founder, Shootin’ Doubles
Dana Peters - Founder, PROOF Wallets
Mike Khristo - Founder, Layers
Shopify Merchants Are Live on Meta’s Muse
Meta Launches Muse AI Agent With Shopify Merchants. Meta released Muse, a personal AI agent that shops, books, and completes tasks on users' behalf, and Shopify confirmed its merchants are already live inside it. When a user shops through Muse, the agent searches Shopify Catalog to find the best match and completes checkout directly in the app, with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke posting that the product "looks very strong." Meta shares rose 6% on the launch.
The Rundown:
Muse connects to Gmail, Google Calendar, Plaid, OpenTable, Shopify, and Meta's own apps including Instagram and Messenger. It runs 24/7, keeps working after the app closes, and can act unprompted.
Checkout runs through Link by Stripe, which issues a one-time virtual card per transaction. Muse is the first AI agent covered by Link's purchase protections. Shop Pay and 1Password support are coming.
Each user gets a dedicated secure virtual machine, and Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang said users control which connectors are on and whether the agent can read or modify data.
Pricing runs free, $20, or $100 per month, Meta's first direct consumer subscription revenue from its AI spend. US-only at launch, with WhatsApp and AI glasses planned.
It's powered by Muse Spark, the model shipped in April, and enters a field that includes OpenAI's in-chat commerce and Grok's announced purchasing plans.
Muse pairs agentic checkout infrastructure that startups have been piloting with distribution across four apps of a billion-plus users each, and Shopify's catalog is plugged in from day one. For merchants, a second major AI surface now sells their products natively, with the agent, not the storefront, deciding what the shopper sees.
Top Stories: Agencies vs. CMOs, AI & Holiday Spending, and SKIMS x DoorDash
Sean Frank argues brands should hire from agencies and avoid fractional CMOs. His stance raises a practical question for growing brands: who should lead marketing? The discussion explores agency experience, leadership needs and what operators should look for in their next hire.
Bain forecasts holiday spending will exceed $1 trillion. The report also says 24% of shoppers start shopping with AI. For brands preparing for the holidays, that raises questions about how customers will discover their products.
SKIMS is expanding its distribution through DoorDash. The move brings apparel into a shopping experience associated with food and convenience. For commerce operators, it raises the question of where on-demand delivery fits into their own distribution strategy.
Make Your Marketing More Profitable with Northbeam
If you live in the Ads Manager, you know the problem: every platform takes credit and every dashboard tells a different story. Meta says 4.2 ROAS. TikTok claims the same conversion. Which one is lying? Honestly — all of them.
Northbeam fixes this with proprietary data that starts from the actual purchase and then rebuilds the customer journey from real orders, real clicks, and real verified ad views. That measurement gets pushed back into the ad platforms, so optimization runs on what's actually driving revenue — not what the platforms assume is.
Start measuring what used to be unmeasurable.
→ Book your demo at Northbeam.io
Ecomm Cowboy is the go-to live show for ecommerce operators, breaking down the latest DTC, retail, and AI news while interviewing the founders and executives building today's fastest-growing brands.
We’re live every Monday to Friday at 12PM CT.
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Made Possible By:
AppLovin - Find your next million customers.
Seguno - the Shopify-native marketing suite for brands that run it themselves.
Postscript - Make more money from every SMS message.
Outersignal- Know Your Customers. Grow Your Business.
Northbeam - Measure the “unmeasurable,” make your marketing profitable.
Rokt Aftersell - More profit from the orders you’re already getting.
Universal Ads - TV ads that deliver for performance marketers.
Richpanel - The AI helpdesk that saves you headaches (and money).
SATHI - Affiliate attribution beyond last-click commissions.
Slash - A better business banking platform.
Trendtrack - Track competitors' winning marketing strategies daily.
Tie - The internet’s #1 shopper ID platform.
Proppel - The best recruitment agency for ecom brands and agencies.
See you on the stream,
Ecomm Cowboy Team